Stranger's care made my day
The supermarkets come in for a lot of criticism so I would like to tell a good story.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
I am getting on in years and my driving days will soon be over. While at Woolies in White Box Rise I went to the desk to ask the person serving what people did with motorised scooters while shopping.
Her reply was that they just drove in them around the aisles.
I thanked her and while unpacking my groceries in the car she appeared at my car with a lovely bunch of flowers.
She said that I looked so sad so on behalf of Woolies she gave me the flowers and asked if she could give a hug which we did.
It made my day that a stranger cared so much.
Marlene Hogg, Wodonga
Give excess back to ratepayers
Things are pretty grim at the moment with high inflation. Costs are up for rents, mortgage payments, groceries, petrol, everything is more expensive. It's time for some good news and Indigo Shire Council can make all the ratepayers a little happier.
In 2009 Indigo Council acknowledged responsibility for the rehabilitation of four closed garbage sites in the shire. In 2009 the council began collecting cash from rates and deposited it in a landfill rehabilitation reserve. In 2010 the name was changed to the waste management facility levy, and in 2016 the name was changed again to the environmental management contribution (EMC) and by 2023 the EMC had grown to around $7.5 million - Wow! That was a bit confusing.
Now you can't have a big chunk of money like that just sitting around so council started the landfill provision. A provision is a non-cash item and it balanced out the EMC. Council engaged a consultant engineer to provide an estimate for the rehabilitation and this set the value for the provision. In 2022 the provision was $6.3 million, but in 2023 the Environment Protection Authority established a new standard for capping the closed sites and the 2023 valuation was reduced to $4.2 million.
So now we have it. Council has collected around $7.5 million in cash from our rates and the cost of rehabilitation has been reduced to $4.2 million. Council has collected around $3.3 million too much!
The rehabilitation was collected as a special charge, and it cannot be used for other purposes, so now council should give the excess back to the ratepayers.
