Feel the Power

This green box is what is needed to put the power cables underground.
The shopping area of Main St in Sheffield will have the overhead
powerlines placed underground by about March 2009. I think it will be
the biggest visual change to the Main St since the murals came in.

The chances of birds "bombing" you will be significantly reduced!

Sewerage

Yes poo.

Since joining council I have learnt a lot. I can tell you the direct route sewerage takes from our place all the way to the treatment plant. Impressive eh? Maybe not. Learning about the sewer has been important. Why? Because the Sheffield sewerage system has many problems and to fix it you need to understand a bit of how it works.

Problems include:

A poorly built plant (in arbitration over this one).
Cracked pipes in town allowing groundwater to enter the sewer system (overwhelming the plant)
Secondary effluent flowing into a private landowners dam.

We need to fix this problem. We have recently had a consultant lay some future options before us. These include:
Upgrade the sewer plant (improve the effluent quality) then pump it to the Dasher River.
Upgrade the sewer plant (improve the effluent quality) then pump it to the Dodder Rivulet
Upgrade the sewer plant (improve the effluent quality) then re-use it on a farm to grow pasture and trees.

Given water scarceness increasing I have been pushing hard for the re-use option. Council will need to vote on this soon. I hope they vote for the re-use option.

Tony Coates contracts to Council and has done a very good job with a substandard plant. He has improved it's output considerably.

Now where do we find the millions of dollars to upgrade? Water and sewerage will no longer be council's direct responsibility after July 1 2009. It is up to us to set the future direction now.

Sheffield Christmas Carols

We have just attended the Sheffield Christmas Carols at the Sheffield School. What a great facility the new stadium is.

Pam the school chaplain gave a small talk about the need to slow down at Christmas and consciously give time to help others. She said that Christmas for some will be a sad and lonely time. I think of the Hibbles and Hayes families.

Christmas is a big thing in our family. We "do" advent each year building up to Christmas. I enjoy the build up. Jesus said "a person's life does not consist in the abundance of their possessions". Can't argue with that.

Merry Christmas.

Community Garden Meeting

Reporting back. A meeting was held at the Sheffield Town Hall to discuss the establishment of a community garden in Sheffield. Mark Beach-Ross chaired the meeting. There were about 20 people in attendance.

A working group of 5 or so was established on the night who will drive this project. The group is a good cross section of the town. Some big questions the group will need to consider:

Where will the garden be?
How will the garden look?
How big will the beds be?
How long can people have a plot?
What shelter will be needed?
Wat about insurance?

This is a very good project. I believe the timing is right it's establishment.

Do you want to get involved?

Wilmot Primary School Award Celebration Night

There were 5 Kentish Councillors who attended this night earlier this
week. The town hall was packed. I was really impressed by the turnout.
There were many music items this year including saxophone, recorder,
clarinet and electric guitar.

It struck me how imporant the Primary School is to the area of Wilmot.
There was open praise for the Principal and staff.

Wilmot in my time on Council has created no grief for us. The
community seem to get on with things without too much fuss. There is
now a market each month which is gaining traction.

Well done again Wilmot.

Community Garden Meeting

Tomorrow night we have a meeting with the hope of establishing a
community garden in Sheffield. Growing veggies with others sounds
better than growing them alone. It is happening at the Town Hall
supper rooms at 7pm. I hope you can cone.

Green Hall Meeting

Councillors met with Railton residents to discuss the future of the Green Hall.

Residents seem keen to keep the facility and want to see it better utilized by the community. The monitoring of the asbestos and potential expenses associated with it are a concern to me.

Council has just received $272,000 from the Federal Government. I wonder whether we should use some of this to remove all the asbestos from the Green Hall. Once and for all.

What I want is:

A hall that is run by an enthusiastic and active committee (after the meeting some people put their hand up to join which is great)
A hall that is low maintenance (remove the asbestos and do a few repairs and we may have this)
A hall that is well used by the community (the renewed energy of the committee will hopefully make this happen).

There has been confusion about insurance and what the target audience is for the hall. The committee and Council can now sort this out. The committee members who spoke on the night impressed me. Sincere and want to see the Green Hall well utilized.

So.....let's see if Council will spend some money removing the asbestos from the hall.............