Council threat to mental and physical health and welfare
When I look at the proposals put forward by the new administrator to get our Council back in the black, I find them not to my liking.
I feel that we, as residents, are being penalised for a crime we have not committed.
According to what I read, there are many Councils which were amalgamated by Mr Baird in 2016, presumably to save money, which are now in a similar position.
I know that we did not misuse the money and we certainly didn't walk away with our redundancy package intact.
This is a problem which belongs to the State Government and it needs to solve it.
Proposals to sell off and reduce library monies mean that the libraries will be used less and less and so inevitably they all will be closed and sold.
Libraries should be exciting places where people can drop in at odd times to get help with assignments or new technology; where people can extend their horizons and expand their vision of society and the world.
It is known that better education leads to higher standards of health and to less crime.
Surely this is what we need on the Central Coast, now the third largest Council in NSW.
We need more money for libraries, universities, the ABC, public education and for our TAFES.
Many of our TAFE faculties are lying idle. Why?
It is believed that the plan is to privatise them. Again Why?
Our TAFE system is or was the envy of many other countries, such as Singapore and South Korea.
Why should we exploit other countries by inviting their trained citizens to fill the gaps on temporary visas? Why can we not train our own citizens?
Private colleges have failed and wasted a great deal of public money.
We are also the only country I know of which gives public money to private schools, which has led to elitism and a divided society.
Surely a fair civilisation would want the absolute best education for all its citizens.
The selling of any public land on the Peninsula is ridiculous.
The enormous population growth here and the subsequent loss of trees and green space has led to an increase of about two degrees in the temperature as well as very crowded roads, more pollution, more accidents and more flooding.
Our mental and physical health and the welfare of all the other animals which share this land, require more green space and trees not less.
We need to write to the new administrator, Mr David Farmer, as well as to the NSW Minister for Local Government, Ms Shelley Hancock, expressing our disgust at these proposals.
The people on the Central Coast are just as important as the people in her electorate of the South Coast.
SOURCE:
Email, 29 May 2021
Margaret Lund, Woy Woy Bay