The pool's heat pumps are currently broken. This, along with the wet weather last week dropped the pool's water temperature from 27 to 21 degrees. Brrr!

Can the council please fix the pool's heat pumps (as asked to) so that kids can learn to swim  and can train without shivering and turning blue?

Monday afternoon rolls around and it’s tears and drama at my house because it's swimming lesson day.

Not because my kids hate swimming - the opposite actually, they are both water babies – but because the pool temperature at Bega is freezing!

Most of the season the pool maintains a balmy 25-degree-plus. But this season has been so hit and miss due to a fault with the heater and they are relying on solar.

These last few overcast weeks have meant the pool temp has dropped considerably.

I've watched kids in every lesson and the older squad kids turning blue. It means my kids are so busy shaking in the water that they are learning nothing.

On complaining to the new pool managers they have told me unfortunately it's out of their hands.

So come on BVSC pull your fingers out, find some money and fix this problem. 

The pool is used by a great number of community members and we deserve to have the same standards that other shires enjoy.

Swimming is a skill for life.

After listening to Member for Bega Andrew Constance extol the monumental economic benefits that will flow to the South East should Bega and Bombala councils decide to merge, excited residents and ratepayers would be forgiven for thinking the proposal will deliver greater economic benefits than did the unification of Germany in 1990.

But hang on, there is no Berlin Wall between Bombala and Bega, just residents and ratepayers speaking the same language, all wanting the same efficient basic services that local government is supposed to deliver everywhere - nothing more, nothing less.

The benefits of scale, the promise of streamlined access to the coast, the tantalising promise of a tourism nirvana, significantly improved infrastructure - these need not be conditional on a merger, rather, just the willingness of government to make greater and better investment in the region.

This is not the same as wasting money on projects that simply do not make economic sense, nor pass the “pub test” like the Merimbula Airport upgrade, the proposed Tura Library or the monument to government under construction in Littleton Gardens.

The state government is offering a bag of money to councils if they agree to merge.

Well Minister, if the region will genuinely benefit through improvements to Mount Darragh Rd, Six Mile Bridge or other critical infrastructure, why not just make the investment and get it done? Why the conditions?  

Mr Constance claims “Four years of independent research, analysis and consultation with councils and the community has shown that the current system of local government is not working as well as it should be”.

Well, how right he is. But he’s a fool if he thinks merging Bega and Bombala councils will change that.

The problem is not a function of economic imperatives or strategic initiatives.

It’s always been about the inability of local governments to focus on the best possible delivery of core services, coupled with the stubborn refusal to genuinely engage with the communities they allegedly serve.

“Fit for the Future Mr Constance?” Not in your wildest dreams.