Short and sweet - Council's meeting of 22nd Oct

In a quick flowing Council meeting, chaired capably by Deputy Mayor Rob Pollock in the unexplained absence of Liz Innes, the councillors moved through the agenda at a near record pace to adopt all placed before them with just one variation to a recommendation.
 

Councillors today voted to Support Councillor McGinlay's motion for the trial installation of sanitary bins in the shire’s most popular public toilets. The bins will be placed in 15 of the shire’s unisex accessible toilets.
 

Councillors agreed that Eurobodalla’s ageing population should feel comfortable and have enough room and privacy to change their continence products in the shire’s public amenities blocks.
 

At an estimated annual cost of $3,150, the bins will be in place before the end of the year and an awareness campaign is to be launched as the bins are installed.
 
 Councillors also voted to once again request a round table meeting with the RMS to discuss the long term strategies of the Princes Highway through the shire inclusive of Narooma. Three years after Councillor Constable first raised this as a Notice of Motion the Councillors today voted once again to call on various Ministers to reveal the long term plans for the highway and to be sure that the community is included in the conversation.
 

At today's meeting Eurobodalla Councillors also formally accepted the NSW Government’s offer of $25.6M towards construction of a southern water storage. Predicted to cost $105M, Council has applied for fifty percent of the project cost from the Australian government. Council will fund the remaining $25.6M.
 

Above: The 3,000 megalitre storage will be built west of Bodalla, pumping water from the Tuross River in times of high flow to an offstream storage and water treatment plant. The storage is not a traditional dam, but takes the form of a 370 metre long embankment, 39m in height, located on an unnamed tributary of the Tuross River.
 
 Council says work will start immediately to purchase land, while construction of a pump station to transfer water from the river to the new storage could start early in 2020.
 
 Of interest is that the Council will be buying the Forestry land from the State Government and will also be required to pay for licences and fees so an unknown amount of the recent NSW State funding will return to the NSW State.

Also good news today as Councillors also accepted the NSW government’s offer of $762,000 for a sewerage scheme at Akolele. This will be similar to other schemes built by Council in recent years at Guerilla Bay, Rosedale and Bodalla with Akolele sewer pumped, by agreement, to the Bermagui treatment works.
 
 In light of next year being an election year it was noted that there would be 16 rather than 18 meetings and that there was a major gap in the Public Access calendar. This was brought to the Council's attention and after consultation with staff it was agreed that a Public Access session also be added for August 2020.
 
 All in all a good meeting, well conducted and reasonably attended by the public that saw just a few Dorothy Dix prattle-ons, most likely to ensure voters were aware their favourite councillors were still awake and 'contributing'.