Arrogant amalgamation
I AM about to break a rule of mine not to comment on current council business, as I have “had my go” at managing shire affairs.
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However, the current proposal of a three-way amalgamation of Lockhart, Corowa and Urana would be one of the worst and most arrogant decisions I have heard of.
Premier Mike Baird has made some good decisions for NSW but this is not one of them.
Paul Toole is certainly not a minister for local government.
In all three shires, there has been extensive consultation, public meetings and in-depth discussions about shire amalgamations.
I hate to think how much time has been wasted on this issue which could have been better spent trying to improve conditions for residents within shires.
Not once to my knowledge has such a three-way amalgamation been mooted – such arrogance to pluck this decision out of ignorant bureaucracy.
In each of the three shires there are nine councillors, local residents elected by their fellow citizens to manage their respective shire in the best possible interests of the citizens.
The amalgamation reduces by 18 the input from local citizens, a travesty of justice.
It is hard to see how three citizens of Lockhart could be aware of the best interests of the Corowa Shire, more than 100 km away and vice versa.
Urana has the smaller population in the middle and it seems to me to manage its affairs just fine.
I would challenge the appropriate minister to show me some concrete economic benefit such an amalgamation would create.
In every case all the same services of roads, rubbish and water, gardens and toilet cemeteries still have to be provided.
As I see it amalgamations create a bigger bureaucracy, create more travel and generally soak up any possible savings.
The NSW government should immediately distribute the offered $20 million merger carrot to the three shires and let them get on with managing business in their usual efficient way.
I will not even start on about the significant history of each of these shires.
BRUCE DAY, Corowa
(Former mayor of Lockhart Shire)
Consider your neighbours
CHRISTMAS Day comes only once a year and you would expect it to be a peaceful one – but not in my neighbourhood.
The house next door got sold a few weeks ago and ever since then, every day you hear them doing renovations.
Lo and behold, they were at it again on Christmas Day.
What a sad world we live in when people are more interested in their own interests and not their fellow neighbours.
How nice it would be to relax and enjoy the birth of Jesus without any interruptions.
DEBORAH GREEN, Wodonga
Stupidity of criminal ilk
I NOTICED the letter entitled “Small acts of stupidity” (The Border Mail, December 26) about idiots causing a fire in Wodonga with firecrackers.
We had bigger stupider idiots lighting firecrackers and skyrockets on Christmas night, in the Baranduda Whites Road area, from 9pm until about 9.30pm.
Don’t these dills read the papers or watch the news?
People have lost their homes, stock, pets, incomes, everything in a bushfire just across the valley in Indigo last week. Those fires could have burned these idiots out only for the great effort firefighters made to save us all from tragedy.
These idiots who lit the skyrockets should be charged with intent to lighting a fire on an extreme fire danger day.
You also terrified all the dogs and horses in the area. Grow up you dills, if need to break the law, do it on a day in the middle of winter.
