News from the Mayor- April 2019 edition

25 Apr 2019 10:32 PM -

Hi Everyone,

I attended the Murrumbidgee Environmental Water Allowance Group Meeting. It is important to attend these meetings to have more of an awareness and understanding of environmental watering programs and outcomes.

My wife Julie and I attended the SunRice Gold Pro Am Dinner. It was great to see so many golfing visitors at this event. This event is another great opportunity to showcase our Golf Course located in the heart of our town.

As the delegate for Riverina and Murray Joint Organisation, I attended the WaterNSW Murrumbidgee Customer Advisory Group Meeting. It’s important to keep up to speed with all water related issues including drought strategy and projected water availability, inflows and storage forecast. At this meeting a new interactive site called “Insights Portal” was introduced and is now live. The aim of this powerful new resource is to enable customers to make more informed water resource planning decisions by presenting up to date and visual information as well as help people understand what water is present in the system. WaterNSW also discussed with the group critical water needs with the ongoing drought.

I attended the Annual Tocal College Yanco Agricultural Institute Presentation. It is great to see the number of different and varied training courses/programs that are being provided at this very important educational facility in our Shire.

The General Manager and I have visited Narrandera, Griffith, Murrumbidgee and Carrathool Councils to present the business plan and opportunities for the Western Riverina Intermodal Freight Terminal (WRIFT). The soft launch of the master plan and business case is pencilled in for Tuesday 30 April. We are hoping to get a Minister or two down to the Western Riverina for this event.

The Manager Community Services, General Manager and I participated in a session organised by the Leeton Community Op Shop on “Tough Love” for people recovering from drug and alcohol addiction. An interesting presentation was made by Peter Lyndon-James of Shalom House in Perth on how he personally set up a series of rehabilitiation facilities without one cent of government funding. We had our neighbouring councils attend too. It will be interesting to see what appetite there is to explore this for the Western Riverina where ice (especially) continues to be an issue that impacts the lives of individuals and families. Following this was a Community Forum held at the Roxy Theatre which was attended by close to 200 people. It was inspiring to hear Peter give his life story and the impact drugs had on his life and to see him now sharing his experience and how his life has been turned around by having the right programs in place to help people in these dire situations.

Take care and best wishes until my May update.

Kind Regards, Leeton Shire Council Mayor Cr Paul Maytom