I want to draw your attention to this beautiful place. It is a nice park, but the situation is getting worse and worse.
The condition of the Rockdale Bicentennial Park's pond is horrible.
The water is dirty, polluted with plastic bottles and other junk. It is a matter of time when all birds and other local inhabitants will die or disappear. It is a horrible thing, and it is hard to believe that our children and grandchildren will never see the beauty of the park again.
As I remembered a few years ago, the local council had a program to clean up and revive the pond. But now it looks like no one cares and the pond appears abandoned by the council.
Please, help save the Rockdale Bicentennial Park.
Vlad Kanashkevich
Rockdale
Special rates variation
The recently released report of IPART approving the special variation to rates (SV) in Georges River LGA is concerning as the continuation of the previous 'Infrastructure Plus' program - and its generously disproportionate funding of sports facilities that are not widely used by the majority of locals - means that there is nothing special here at all, just more of the same!
Infrastructure Plus was approved in 2006-07 at 9.95 per cent pa for 15 years and was supposed to deal with backlogs and new demands of urban consolidation to remain temporarily in the council's rate base. The council has now been granted an SV to increase its general income by a cumulative 32.6 per cent over the five years from 2021-22 to 2025-26. The proposed SV is evenly spread across the period, with a 5.8 per cent increase each year, however, instead of a 10 per cent decrease in rates, that extra 5.8 per cent, unlike before, remains permanently in the rate base, so it's not just a five-year phase-in, but for the Georges River Council its "locked-in Eddie!"
Of concern to Bayside Council, perhaps the fact that IPART used a picture from its LGA as the cover on Georges River's report. Is something we don't know in the pipeline?
One thing is sure, state governments of both persuasions expect us to live with urban consolidation and continue subsidising developer greed.
Greg Briscoe-Hough
Mortdale
Mortdale Vs Carss park
Georges River Council not only refused to rebuild Carss Park pool but, in its unnecessary haste to demolish it, also rejected a study into its significance as a war memorial (with 25 per cent of its construction cost funded by the RSL). On Anzac Day, residents decorated the pool fence with tributes and the council removed them the morning after. On the other hand, the council has adopted a completely different attitude towards the veteran community in Mortdale. In March, the expert Local Planning Panel rejected Mortdale RSL's D.A. for a 12-storey development due to "excessive bulk and scale" and other reasons. However, last week, councillors voted unanimously to reconsider the matter at a "workshop" that will be closed to the public. If only they could reach a similar consensus on Carss Park pool!
Peter Mahoney
Oatley
A kind cabbie
A St George cabbie returned to our village office my name tag, which had dropped in his cab; now I know who I am again!
Thanks, mate, God bless.
Arthur,
Kirrawee
AstraZeneca clotting
The AstraZeneca rollout has just encountered a sizable over fifties blood clot, something that government medicos chose initially not to divulge. What else aren't we told?
We're all in together, aren't we?
With over fifties clotting "statistically" outnumbering the under fifties, will AstraZeneca be ruled out for this group, or will authorities continue risking public lives, as they have been doing by pushing AZ onto the undiagnosed vulnerable?
The only time the medical profession are aware a blood clot exists is when it's usually too late, usually not by local GPs as I have known, or after significant and permanent incapacitation has occurred. Individuals can carry clots long before it becomes apparent. Even small and short-term clots can cause major atrophy, another obfuscated fact.
How does the government know that the underlying risk from undiagnosed clotting, small as it outwardly appears, isn't a future risk?
Shouldn't individuals be tested for a clotting propensity before AstraZeneca is administered, or is this something that governments and manufacturers can avoid with legal risk mitigation?
R Piech,
Sans Souci
