Thank you Sally Pill
I would openly like to acknowledge the bravery of local girl Sally Pill and her friend on Friday at the Curalo lake outflow.
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My son Daniel was enjoying the warm shallow waters of Lake Curalo spilling into the sea and suddenly found himself in deep water and in difficulty as he is not a good swimmer. Sally saw he was in trouble and fearlessly swam to his assistance putting herself in danger to aid my son.
A minute or two may have been the difference between life and death for Daniel and she fought hard to keep them both afloat. It was a very difficult situation with panic and desperation making a rescue almost impossible and drowning a real possibility.
This near disaster was eventually turned around by the delivery of a boogie board by Sally’s friend.
My appreciation is unfathomable.
David Richardson
Community engaged
The outcome of years of arm-wrestling about whether to close Pambula District Hospital or not is on the whole to be welcomed. For that, the members engaged in the diligent Health Service Service Community Engagement Committee, chaired capably by Les Stahl, deserve our thanks. Our hospital will retain day-time emergency and we can expect much-needed improvements to facilities. Overall healthcare in the south of the vast Bega Valley Shire can be expected to be decent, thanks to a good local provision of private doctors and other healthcare professionals and to the new public Bega hospital, assuming that the new facilities at Bega will be staffed by qualified resident experts and not depend on jerry-rigged locum rosters.
Even if most of us regret that maternity has been lost and ambulances coming from Eden and further south will bypass PDH, we – as potential patients, but also as taxpayers – should be able to live with the compromise.
The lesson we should to take away is this: simply criticising and saying that “they” ought to do this or that for us won’t do. We, the citizens, have to stand up for our interests. The fact that the local community engaged the authorities with such energy, imagination and persistence, fills me with a deep sense of pleasure about living in this district.
Wolfgang Kasper, Tura Beach
Hotel proposal ‘logical’
The case for Bega Valley Shire Council purchasing the Hotel Australasia is based on logic not emotion as suggested by the headline on the Magnet, January 28, ‘Final plea for pub’.
Considerable council investment has been made to revitalise the streetscape of Imlay St including the purchase and demolition of a Chandos St house to give improved access to the car park behind Imlay St.
Council purchasing of the Australasia property would ensure a permanent and attractive pedestrian thoroughfare from the car park to the main street as at present both are situated on private property: the drive in bottle shop lane way and the arcade in retail premises. An Australasia property developer could build up to the adjoining property wall.
Council could insist on a pedestrian access to be included in any plans for this property but more likely it would be that council would have to either buy or lease this strip of land to ensure pedestrian access.
It is the land available on the Australasia site that could enable council to achieve the most for the Eden community.
Eden is a major town of the Bega Valley Shire but it does not have a community hall. The School of Arts was demolished and the Log Cabin is not suitable for some events leaving the (licensed) Fishermen’s Club.
Therefore, it is the future financial savings for council and opportunities for economic growth in Eden, and therefore the shire, that are the main reasons for BVSC to purchase the Australasia.
Sue Horton, Eden