Cyann Vlatkovic, Mystery Bay

My sincere thanks and best wishes to Anne at Hatsavvy. I was overjoyed to win the main door prize of a $100 gift voucher at the opening party. We are privileged to have a world-class milliner in our little township.

Deanne Miller, Narooma

Why would council give $100,000 to a total stranger to find out if ratepayers think council is spending our money on the right things? When Blind Freddy and nearly every other ratepayer will tell them for nothing. After the last consultant MicroMax pocketed a similar sum to distort the people’s wishes when even though over 75 per cent of ratepayers were against a rate rise council stormed ahead with it.

We were told council needed the money for roads and bridges. All of a sudden there is plenty for gimmicks that will give nil result. Like so many ratepayers I can find within 50 metres of my house potholes in the road, jagged road edges and incomplete guttering and paths. No money for these works but no limit on consultant spending! With a wage bill of nearly 5 million dollars and a GM on over $300,000 we still can't find anyone capable of conducting a general meeting or survey.

We are paying a 20 per cent plus rate rise to cover mismanagement of our council. The money wasted on avoidable lengthy LEP's and Sea Level Rise runs into millions. Inflated staff salaries, excessive mayoral and councillor expenses and wasteful expenditure on council's fleet, environmental works and propaganda erode council's dollars. Their only answer seems to be regular increases in rates and charges. Ratepayers don't have the time to put in on Mickey Mouse meetings that will be guided towards council's credibility. That's how consultants make their money. With council elections in the middle of this process the timing is bazaar. No councillor who allows for the waste of funds that council is guilty of deserves re-election. Let's hope the new council puts an end to this nonsense and its perpetrators.

Bruce Rapkins, Kianga

I was pleasantly surprised at the sense of cooperation I encountered from other party supporters in Narooma at pre poll when I was there for the Animal Justice Party.  Thank you to all of you for making my job easy. This election illustrates something we are finally waking up to – that Australians have outgrown the political system featuring two major parties working against each other, rather than for the best government of the country. 

What is important to Australians is not whether Liberal/National or Labor 'win' but that we are confident we have a great team of people working together, consulting independent experts and making the best decisions possible for the country. Liberals and Labor and others are close on many issues anyway. Australians no longer want to hear constant attempts at point-scoring. And so it should be in our local Eurobodalla Shire Council.  A team of moderate, co-operative, emotionally mature representatives who can put aside their egos, truly consult and work collaboratively for the higher good.  

Coral Anderson, Batehaven

Now the federal elections are over however the shire’s voters will being going to voting booths again this September to choose 9 people they want to represent them for the next four years as their voice in council. Who ever is elected in September as councillors are expected by the shires voters and residents to represent the community for the community good, not push their own personal agenda’s as clearly has been the case recently and in the past.

Council has recently adopted a budget and management plan some refer to it as a delivery program, the reality though it is an agreed plan on how council expects to allocate and spend other people’s money and fund longer term infrastructure requirements like roads, footpaths, water and sewer needs etc  as well as fund the council operations salaries and wages too. 

Whoever gets elected in September as the shire’s residents representatives to council will largely be controlled by the current budget and management plan over the coming term. Claims being made by any aspirants for the elections of what they will do and provide for the shires voters over the next four years if elected, needs to be properly considered by the shires voters before anyone is supported.

Allan Brown, Catalina

The Narooma News on June 29 published a story congratulating candidates for not nailing posters to trees. But the photographed depicted a poster on a power pole, which is also not allowed.