The pool rally was a huge success with more than 500 people (228 cars with two occupants) turning out to make it very clear to Council that although they would welcome an indoor, year-round facility, it could not be at the expense of any pool closures.
The number of people there underlined the depth of feeling against pool closures as the weather was awful.
For the half-hour before we had lightning, thunder, sleet and rain, but when the meeting started the rain stopped and stayed away until after the last speaker.
The four Councillors who voted against closures, Crs Tuddenham, Lewis, Fairall and Mendelson (who sent a supportive statement from Queensland) were cheered by the crowd. Cr Wood, though not cheered, was listened to politely as he presented his point of view. Full points to him, he was the only pro-closure Councillor there, although Larry Whipper did send an apology.
Statements and points of view were taken from the crowd and two stood out among many. In an area that is growing, why would we be closing facilities rather than providing more to keep up with that growth. The other was from John Whyte who smiled as he congratulated the pro-closure Councillors for bringing the community together like never before.
Parochialism has been virtually non-existent during the whole pools’ debate which is great. It would have been easy for the Bowral user groups to have taken a “we’re alright Jack” attitude, but they didn’t as evidenced by the speech of Friends of Bowral Pool representative Dave Chandler.
Peta Seaton and Jo Gash both lent their support, Peta on the day and Jo with a supportive statement. Owen Edwards was eloquent, pointing out that not only was Moss Vale a War Memorial but was built with a large amount of public money and manual participation.
Let’s hope sanity prevails and Council rescinds its moved, seconded and adopted pool closure policy. Then let’s make an indoor, year-round facility an election issue with a referendum on the subject.
• I think the Wingecarribee Shire Council has top-class employees. Every time I have reason to go to Council I find the staff to be very polite and go out of their way to help.
I take my hat off to the planners and engineers, as it must be very difficult because as an expert you are being constantly over-ruled by people who have no expertise in planning or engineering at all.
It must be very hard to keep doing your best all the time and not be disheartened when your work and expertise is trivialised by being rejected by untrained people.
A good example is Banyette Street, where all the experts advise against temporary or permanent closure and yet five Councillors are still refusing to accept the umpire’s decision, for the third time.
The school is surrounded on three sides by roads and the move is to close Banyette, the quietest one.
Although Banyette is the street they need to cross collectively they still have exposure to Bendooley and Boolwey which are much busier and so would seem to be the biggest threat to children’s welfare.
If this is really a safety issue why are the danger streets not mentioned?
My opinion is to build another school and remove the kids from danger because you won’t remove the danger from the kids in that area.
The whole community would lobby for another school that would have some eye to the future of an increasing number of students.
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