Special Rate Variation Community Engagement Report - Shoalhaven City Council

Now council proposes, NOT a reduction, but an increase of more than 25%
This will cripple pensioners! It will stifle spending for rate paying residents!
Let me give council a solution. They just recently allowed the closure of the White
House as a venue for tourist accommodation. That used to bring in around $3
million dollars to the local community! It used to bring in thousands of happy
tourists to enjoy the Heritage listed accommodation. People who stayed there spent
at least a further million dollars in local shops and cafes. Council then replaced it
with a Women’s Refuge costing millions of dollars to run? Simultaneously driving
away tourists from a street now full of such, money consuming tourist unappealing
entities. But why replace an income producing entity with an income depleting
entity?
Council took the local showground, returning well over $2 million tourist dollars
and allowed it to be over‐run by drug taking dropouts that drive tourists away from
our town in droves. (Take a look at the increase in the number of empty shops in
Nowra CBD!) and wonder why you need to increase rates!
The council needs to do three things. Stop killing local tourism. Stop replacing
tourism with income depleting initiatives and finally and most importantly start
LIVING WITHIN ITS MEANS. The rest of us have to!
54Hollway,
Craig
D16/3725
25
The roads should be the top item on the agenda. If the council wastes money on a
cultural centre is it showing to the ratepayers that your priorities are out the
window.
Roads and asset maintenance are the
priority areas for the rate increase
No one is going to come to the cultural centre if the rest of the area is an
abomination.
95