Batemans Bay bowlo
Can anyone please tell me the rationale behind ESC’s purchase of the defunct Batemans Bay Bowling Club site? Following the purchase, council sought Expressions of Interest for its development, which suggests to me council had no initial real plans to support the purchase.
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The “Streaker’s Excuse that it seemed a good idea at the time” is not valid. Council has upped rates to very high levels, and should not be spending on such speculative projects. Seems to me the financial geniuses who “invested” ratepayers’ funds in Lehman Brothers some years ago are still active in council ranks. I see another big loss coming with this exercise.
Frank O’Brien, Narooma
Slippery slope of survival
Further to recent letters “Mayoral Megabytes “and that of J. Potts “Answers Wanted” (Bay Post, Narooma and Moruya News): I believe I have a social responsibility to report the following to the community. On multiple occasions I have questioned the legitimacy of some figures displayed in public documents during the “Fit for the Future “period. Eight months expired before the council replied to my Public Forum address of October 25 last year. Not being a “Happy Little Vegemite” with the reply, I addressed council on several subsequent occasions, the last being on June 28. “Panic Stations”. On July 12, the General Manager advised me: “There is an error in the comparative figures in the Delivery 2013-17 Operational Plan 2015-16 for the comparative year 2013/14 year only” and this had been appropriately corrected”. Asset sales achieved for 2013-14 to $695,494 and purchases of assets were $27.1 million. These figure are markedly different from the $30,185,000 asset proceeds and $64,444,000 for asset sales originally queried by me in October 2015. The nonchalant way of describing multi-million dollar changes is beyond belief. The admitted changes came only after I requested further information and obtained General Purpose Financial Statements for the year ended June 30, 2014 but it was only one sheet of the auditor’s report. It would appear panic set in after my address on the June 28 and before final approval by council was required to send out rate notices. Was IPART advised of multi-million dollar “errors” during the “Fit for the Future” period? Did the mayor and councilors question the writers’ various submissions? Were councillors advised of multi-million money changes? ESC management practice has been to ignore the correct responsibility of dating historical changes and reasoning and have not released the real reason why and when the million dollar figures were changed – except that “there was an error”. How can the community have any future confidence in the mayor and the five councillors who voted for the massive compounding double figure rate increase based on false figure? If the mayor and government had taken notice of a petition from over 10,880 ratepayers, the lifestyle of Eurobodalla residents may not have been forced onto that “slippery slope of survival”. The local member and minister, Andrew Constance, showed great interest and concern during a pre-arranged meeting with the writer on the above and other issues. I believe the Minister of Local Government has the power of early intervention and should “send the stewards in” to sort this out without delay and during the caretaker period.
Peter Bernard, Dalmeny
Council elections
In September another election will be occurring, it will be to elect nine councillors including the mayor of the Eurobodalla Shire. Several groups have been established to present candidates for the election on September 10 to represent the shires residents at council. A few will be elected for various groups. Some of the groups’ candidates clearly have personal agendas and will be pursuing their personal ideals once elected, dismissing that they are elected to represent all the shire’s residents for the general community good. Pursuing particular personal agenda’s may be extremely difficult seeing there is a budget and management – delivery program in place at this time. Listen carefully to what prospective candidates have to say before you vote in September. There is no doubt some will say anything using feel good language. But remember it’s the residents and ratepayers who finally pay the bills.
Allan Brown, Catalina
Smith Family thanks
I’m writing to express my sincere thanks and gratitude to the community of New South Wales for their support of The Smith Family’s 2016 Winter Appeal. We launched the Appeal in May to raise $3.65 million by June 30 to support the education of disadvantaged children across Australia. Our Appeal highlighted the impact of severe financial disadvantage on the education of a child. For the 638,000 children living in jobless families across Australia, every day at school can be a struggle. These children often miss out on excursions and camps, can feel isolated and alone, and are at risk of disengaging from learning. Without educational support and extra resources, they may never reach their potential or find a pathway out of poverty. It is heartening that our call to “end poverty – one student at a time” through education resonated with so many people in the community, who responded with great generosity to our Appeal. I would like to thank every individual who made a donation. Your support will allow us to provide out-of-school learning and mentoring programs to more than 9,000 disadvantaged children across Australia this Term 3 and 4. Please know that you are helping make a direct and lasting impact on the lives of disadvantaged children, helping them to thrive at school and to create a better future for themselves.
Jack Murphy, Acting GM, Smith Family