Welcome to this week’s editorial, Another very interesting week that saw People Power on display. It is becoming more and more evident that both State and Federal elections are closer as we see more announcements rolled out and enjoy the increased visitations of politicians we have only heard of in the press or seen on TV. The first visitation this week was from Linda Voltz, the NSW Shadow Minister for Sport, joining Mike Kelly to encourage Eurobodalla Council to proactively seek out grants for their southern towns rather than solely focus on Batemans Bay, as has been the case with the elephantine Mackay Park Aquatic Centre. Narooma needs around $400,000 to really make a difference to their facilities and amenities and have been reliant on Council to proactively pursue funding, which, to date, has amounted to bread crumbs compared to its northern Gateway to the Shire cousin. The Narooma community also made an excellent turnout to the Mobile Office meeting that Mike Kelly conducted going over a whole range of issues. There were many concerns bought to the table and it was terrific to see these being dealt with clearly, one by one. Meanwhile further north the Member for Gilmore, Ann Sudmalis hosted the Minister for Communication, Mitch Fifield on a tour of the region conducting three NBN Forums in Batemans Bay, Moruya and Tuross Head accompanied by Telstra, NBN and Southern Phone staff. These were informative sessions that also put the community directly in contact with the right people to answer questions around the NBN and communications issues and to work through problems they may have encountered. An excellent turnout of the community who also took the opportunity to ask some hard questions regarding the Gilmore electorate. Earlier in the week we saw two petitions delivered to Eurobodalla Council representing some 2000 ratepayers in all. The first was in regards to a proposed car rally and the second was in regards to the pleas of the Broulee residents to Council to promise to listen to their community and retain the last remaining banksia forest in the township. There will be considerably more to say on this petition at a later date however in brief the Mayor lost much face in how she dealt with the petition and further failed with how she dealt with the Council meeting as a whole. It is becoming clearer that the Mayor does not like to be questioned by “the great unwashed” of residents and ratepayers and to do so will see said questioners duly castigated by the Mayor. Added to that is the growing dissent that is coming from her councillors daring to question her in council chambers. The upside of this is that it is all recorded on camera, much to the delight of all those who sit disbelieving in the public gallery of what they see or those at home watching incredulously via live streaming able to watch it over again in the archives. The last community engagement for the week saw two Council staff members attend a very well informed community meeting to discuss the proposed rezoning of community land. It was tortuous for the staff. The solid community turn out and the passion shown by one speaker after another offered hope that maybe at the next election there won’t be as many Donkey votes as the last.
Until next , Lei
