Squash decision
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An open letter to the Bega Valley Shire councillors who decided to spend ratepayers money, against the staff recommendation not to go ahead with the squash court at Pambula because of the blowout of costs from $200,000-plus to over $500,000.
With court closures at Bombala, Moruya, Narooma, Eden for a period of time, Cooma was closed but now reopened by volunteers, other courts also closed are Queanbeyan, Bathurst, Port Macquarie and Goulburn.
Bega has four courts that are not fully utilised and has room for more players, and I think Eden would be in the same position - both within a 25-minute drive.
I believe these new courts are to be built at the Pambula Sports Complex that was to stand financially on its own, meaning the pool, only now to be heavily subsidised by ratepayers.
Is this to be the same case with the squash courts?
Apparently these courts will have moveable walls for other bodies to use – the council would know who these bodies are of course.
This sounds good, but how do you play squash when the walls are not there?
I’m led to believe the decision has been made without proper study of squash in the local area, no consultation with the Bega Squash Club and without a business plan submitted to the council.
We are constantly told there is not enough money for all the things the council has on its plate already!
We would not want to add another burden to the ratepayers would we?
If someone had taken the time and done some research into how squash is going as a sport and spoken to the local squash clubs before making a decision, a different outcome may have been arrived at.
Surely this is not too much to ask as ratepayers.
Robert Blacker
Bega
Search for students
I am looking for family and friends of past students of Roughit Public School, Singleton, NSW.
There will be a gathering of past students and teachers on the weekend of June 7-8.
On June 7 at Club Singleton, William St, from 5pm and on June 8 at Glendon Hall, Glendon via Singleton from 11am where a barbecue lunch will be available for purchase.
There is also a Facebook page that has photos of past events involving the school. Search for Roughit School Reunion.
For more information contact Kim Penfold Hedges by email roughitschool@gmail.com or call 6573 2560.
Kim Hedges
Singleton
Conspiracy widens
As readers of the letters to the editor section of the paper will have gleaned by now, many climate change deniers discount the views of the Bureau of Meteorology, the CSIRO, the IPCC, the UN, 97 per cent of climate scientists and so on, on the basis that those organisations and groups are all part of some world-wide socialist conspiracy to tax the (deserving) rich and to redistribute the proceeds to the (undeserving) poor.
Well it seems the deniers will now have to add BHP Billiton to that very long list of socialist conspirators.
Last week, in a speech at the global energy industry's major annual conference in Texas, Dr Andrew Mackenzie, CEO of BHP Billiton, made the following statement.
“Predicting the detail of the future climate is complex, but the geological evidence record provides compelling evidence.
“Substantial variation in CO2 and other greenhouse gases results in temperature changes with potentially significant implications for life on Earth.
“Warming of the climate is real, human activity is the dominant cause of this warming, and physical impacts are unavoidable.”
He went on to list a number of things the fossil fuel industry must do in relation to the climate change problem.
One of those recommendations was for the industry to “encourage the development of constructive policy, including appropriate carbon pricing mechanisms, that enable the market to identify the most cost-effective methods of cutting emissions”.
I can't wait to see how the likes of Tony (“climate change is crap”) Abbott, Andrew Bolt, Alan Jones, Lord Monckton and so on, go about explaining to BHP Billiton's CEO and his top team of scientists and economists that they wouldn't know what they are talking about!
Jim Bright
Narooma
Doom and gloom
Will the ABC and Sydney Morning Herald promote re-energised doom and gloom stories from the IPCC’s (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report released on March 31?
It is an important question for councils, especially Eurobodalla Shire, because its (we must act now) “Greenhouse Action Plan 2012-2017”, which includes the vexatious sea level rise issue, relies entirely on Nicholas “Stern’s Review of 2006”, which then took alarmism to new heights.
British media is reporting that the IPCC’s 5th Assessment political “Summary for Policymakers” shows increasing alarmism and emphasis on mitigating (controlling - making less severe) the climate rather than adapting to it.
Seemingly, this IPCC report will now show the estimated loss of global GDP caused by a projected average temperature increase of 2.5 degrees Celsius over the 21st Century, to be between 0.2 and two per cent.
This contrasts with Stern’s estimate of a loss of global GDP by not taking action of from five to 20 per cent of global GDP. A mysterious reduction.
Stern estimated the costs of mitigating climate change from two per cent of GDP per year.
Current realistic estimates of achieving possible material mitigation are many times greater and only achievable with complete cooperation of all countries - an in your dreams event, despite President Obama.
The British media report concludes, “The deal is: accept enormous inconvenience, placing authoritarian control into the hands of global agencies, at huge costs that in some cases exceed 17 times the benefits.... with a global cost of two per cent of GDP at the low end and the risk that the cost will be vastly greater, and do all this for an entire century, and then maybe - just maybe - we might save between one and 10 months of global GDP growth”.
This is the UNIPCC bureaucracy attempting to smother inept national governments and councils to justify its flawed “settled science” as it seeks to expand its green politics and environmentalism.
Are we green enough to fall for it?
Neville Hughes
Surf Beach
Concerned citizens
A group of concerned citizens, SAFE (Stop Arms Fairs in Eurobodalla), produced a brochure that they letter-boxed to Narooma, Dalmeny, Tuross, Bodalla and Moruya to inform residents about Huntfest and its ugly sister arms fair, and to gauge community attitudes.
Promotion and sale of firearms in a public building in the main street of town and encouragement of hunting as “family friendly” is alarming and dangerous, but the decision to allow it was made by a majority of Eurobodalla Shire councillors with little or no community consultation.
Crs Harding, Bryce and Brown voted against it.
This was in spite of the council’s election promise to be “transparent and accountable” and in contradiction to a policy signed in 2012 acknowledging the council’s responsibility to community engagement.
The general manager on behalf of the mayor answered that since the policy was not governed by legislation it was not enforceable!
“How Life Should Be” is the motto of the shire, and not “Hunters Headquarters”, which we are fearful it might become.
The South Coast Hunters Club is predicting an increase in attendance numbers of 25 per cent every year, now that they have been given a licence to sell firearms and have the added attraction of an in interactive killing machine!
The fact that Narooma is so close to pristine national parks and state forests will also be a drawcard to hunters, a fact that should alarm those who attended the Bega rally against hunting in national parks, as well as all who oppose promotion of killing animals as a fun family activity.
Susan Cruttenden
Dalmeny