On Tuesday, July 7, my wife Marg and I drove to Canberra, noting the high number of road kills, both 'roo and wombat.

We left Canberra just in time to get down the hill during daylight hours.

Three clicks short of Bodalla, Skippy attacked our car, leaving us stranded, until Sue of Narooma stopped and checked our safety and offered assistance.

While waiting for NRMA, a white 1 tonner stopped. The two men crawled under the car to investigate the damage, then used my belt to support the wrecked bumper.

They followed us to Bodalla, at slow speed, wished us well and went home to Reedy Creek. 

To the helpers…thanks so much, the caring spirit is alive and well in our part of the world.

Dennis and Marg Allnutt

Narooma

Political interference

Is it not so Clean Energy Week as political interference from a Prime Minister committed to supporting coal continues: cutting back the Renewable Energy Target (RET) from originally 5 -25 per cent to only 5 per cent; adding RET subsidies for burning native forests for electricity

And now attempting to redefine the Clean Energy Finance Corporation mandate.

With battery storage now commercially viable enabling wind and solar to replace dirty fossil fuels what else will Tony Abbott do to stop Australia's progress to a low carbon economy?

Prue Acton OBE

Wallagoot

Narooma, Kianga, Dalmeny flood studies

A large group of Dalmeny residents attended Council’s flood study drop in session at Narooma Library on last Wednesday. The group was accompanied by Councillor Milton Leslight, who made a special trip to Narooma to hear the community’s concerns.

As the local spokesperson for Dalmeny lakefront property owners, computer modelling carried out by the consultants WMAwater, is seriously flawed. Peak lake levels modelled for the major 2010 flood event are a metre and more above the actual lake levels recorded by local residents.

As proof of the modelling failures, residents identified houses, built at levels well below the modelled flood levels, which have in fact, never been flooded.

Residents are concerned that if the study is adopted by Council in its present form, flood planning levels in the order of 4 metres AHD would be applied to all new development in Dalmeny.

More existing properties will carry the “flood affected” label, and the value of these properties will take another nose dive. Insurability will also become an issue for the owners.

After the meeting, Councillor Leslight was confident that the consultants and council staff would take the resident’s concerns on board and rectify the modelling errors.

The community would welcome these corrections, but if council and the State Government did their jobs properly, Dalmeny would not need special flood planning provisions.

All major flooding in Dalmeny is directly attributable to inadequate storm water drainage, especially undersized road culverts, coupled with the inability or unwillingness of Parks and Wildlife to find a failsafe plan for opening Mummuga Lake, at the specified trigger point.

These problems were identified 16 years ago after the 1999 floods. In the meanwhile, council has done very little to improve the storm drainage, and the NPWS has done nothing to improve its lake opening practices.

The community wants solutions, not punitive planning policies to resolve Dalmeny’s flood management issues.

Ian Hitchcock

Executive Member

NSW Coastal Alliance

MACS NAIDOC celebration

Despite the inclement weather, we had a successful and happy NAIDOC Week celebration on Sunday.

The Narooma Plaza upstairs was decorated with red, black and yellow balloons donated to NAIDOC by the Silly Willy store downstairs.

Woolies donated some lamingtons, fruit and other goodies. Roxy's Cafe stayed open to provide hot drinks and food.

We had around 70 folk through the gallery and 50 or so weathered the cold and wet to see the Welcome to Country and the Djaadjawan Dancers.

Viv Mason did the Welcome to Country.

Viv was named Eurobodalla Elder of the Year at Saturday night's award ceremony in Bateman's Bay.

Viv's daughter and leader of the Djaadjawan Dancers, Sharon Mason, is planning to form a Narooma NAIDOC committee to plan well ahead for a bigger and better celebration next year!

The exhibition at our Plaza Gallery has been very popular with average of 40 to 50 people through each day.

There’s some great local talent and wide variety of arts and craft with a good mix of traditional and contemporary works.

It’s a treat to have the original drawings by the children from the Little Yuin Pre-school used to illustrate their book 'Our Little Yuin'. Beth's morning in Narooma Library was obviously very popular from the noise and excitement emanating from that corner of the room!

Glad the exhibition is continuing for the rest of the month!

Dorothy Noble

Montague Arts and Crafts Society

Mayor's say… Investing in our small communities

Yesterday I was fortunate to meet with a happy band of Tomakin residents to celebrate the start of their community hall car park. Located on the corner of George Bass Drive and Sunpatch Parade, it’s not a large project but it is significant.

Significant to the Tomakin community because it will provide safe parking for users of the community hall – one of the busiest in our Shire – and which locals will know gets extra busy when the Rally for Recovery cancer research charity garage sale is underway. The car park is also significant because it is the very first project paid for by our special rate variation.

The NSW Government’s approval of our rate variation means council has an extra $5 million to invest this year on infrastructure and renewal works, on top of its $50.6 million capital program. It allows us to address the backlog of renewals created by rate pegging, address community need – such as the Tomakin car park - and stimulate economic growth.

The projects funded by the rate variation are located up and down the Shire and include bridge repairs, new toilets, viewing platforms, playgrounds, hall and oval upgrades, foreshore protection works, road improvements, and streetscaping. These works are integrated with other capital works to make sure our projects are efficiently managed and that we can leverage other funding opportunities.

Tomakin is a good example of how this kind of advocacy can work. Council is spending $77,000 on upgrading the boat ramp there, and was able to demonstrate in a funding application to the NSW Government that this investment had community and council support.

The result? $173,000 in grant funding for a new car park with boat trailer parking beside the upgraded boat ramp, with construction to start soon. Most of our boat ramps have been upgraded using this funding approach, meaning that we’re getting better than dollar for dollar funding to upgrade these important facilities for locals and our visitors.

Investing in our smaller communities is important to this Council. We enjoy good relationships with many of the community associations and these groups provide a wonderful conduit for ideas and for consultation.

Using the Tomakin example again, our works team talked to the town’s boaters about plans for the boat ramp car park and as a result of their feedback, council’s designers were able to tweak the plans and find room for an extra three boat trailers parking spaces. A good result for everyone.

Page 15 of our Delivery Plan and Operating Plan 2015-16 has a full list of rate variation projects, along with details of all council’s works for the year. It’s well worth a read and you can find the plan on our website and at council offices and libraries.

Please let me know if there are any issues that Council can assist with. You can contact me at mayor@eurocoast.nsw.gov.au or phone 0418 279 215.

Clr Lindsay Brown

Mayor of Eurobodalla Shire