Flood Mitigation Works
This problem of flood mitigation works is much larger than just fixing the issues at hand and a broader application needs to be undertaken by the responsible council for their past blunders and continued mismanagement. New local planning requirements need to be in place for all future applications that pass through council incorporating various types of flood protection not only for businesses and homes but also for other areas affected by the building of such projects. In fact there are many more regulations that need changing in this shire.
All the residents of this shire are being made to pay for past and continued mismanagement by the council and an investigation into council operations and staff qualifications needs to be audited as well past spending for the last 10 years to see how serious the situation really is. Why should we trust an inept council with more money if they clearly don’t even know what they’re doing to start with?
I have struck this problem in the past when investigating other councils and believe me when I say there’s a good reason why this town doesn’t have enough sealed footpaths, proper street lighting, proper flood drainage, so much pollution and overall poor infrastructure. Don’t be fooled by their continued rhetoric of bad explanations year after year.
The council is only providing a series of $18 million dollar stop-gap measures that most likely won’t protect or make much difference every time we get the major rains.
The money that is being used to make basins would be better spent directing the natural flows to where they want. Then the water can flow away no matter how hard it rains. What they’re doing now is only a partial percentage success guarantee.
The only way Coffs Harbour City Council is going to get maximum protection for the bulk of the town is to build a large series of open and huge under ground water channel courses. Most of these channels should go under and follow the actual road systems making their way to creek and huge pumping stations where required.
These channels must be huge and the total cost to the town will be well in excess of 18 million and the council is only offering a sugar coating protection for some parts of town that will still only have a partial success rate. They are wasting most of there 18 million and not putting it into the right areas of development.
These channels need to resemble the actions of dry water creeks and to guide the water away from developed areas around the town when required. Currently roads and buildings are blocking the flow. That flow needs to be restored and guided to where we want it to go.
The basins they are building will only offer a “very” small percentage of protection for “some” residents but not guaranteed protection at all. And at a huge cost that will resolve little issues for the bulk of the town. Especially being the commercial sectors.
The one’s that keep our economies going which is another matter I wont go into.
Homes that are in the full flood level areas should be either rebuilt on stilts or purchased and the land reused for other more suitable uses. Wasting millions in these areas for just a partial protection is just an absolute waste of money. Many of these areas will no doubt flood again even after the work has been completed so its just wasted money.
Reducing the flow of upper creeks won’t always stop the flooding in the low-lying areas. Many low-lying areas will continue to flood unless the water is guided away with channels. These areas usually can flood with just cloudburst rain flooding.
The Coffs Harbour City Council needs to get this right for once.
Is Coffs Harbour City Council Stealing From Our Children?
This is about Coffs Harbour City Council ripping our children off with this over priced playground and equipment costs at Brelsford Park. There are just dozens of playground equipment suppliers and when buying such a quantity even better deals can be achieved but clearly not by our inept city council.
Here is just one supplier company: http://www.absoluteplaygrounds.com.au
Now take a look through their catalogue and prices and you’ll see what we could have had as per example.
http://www.absoluteplaygrounds.com.au/files/Download/AP%20Product%20Catalogue%202009.pdf
Even if they had spent say $300,000.00 on equipment we could have had more than 10 to 20 times as much play equipment.
If you do a little research into playground equipment and suppliers you’ll see we didn’t get value or quantity for money. To start with there is little equipment for the tiny tots like around age 5 and under. There are no separate areas to protect the younger children from the more advanced equipment and older kids. They never even planned to provide shade covering as that was just an after thought.
Most of the equipment is for 6 to 12 years old. You may think it’s a great set up and it all looks fine but the truth is we’re being ripped off again. Coffs Harbour City Council now you’re stealing from our children so where does it stop?
Coffs Harbour City Council has been mismanaging our money for years resulting in such a poor infrastructure around our town. But to see them even ripping off our kids one has to draw the line. Heads need to roll on this issue and they need to be thoroughly investigated.
Now you can see why we don't have enough sealed footpaths, proper street lighting and proper drainage. Our money is just being squandered away.
They stated that this project was worth over a million dollars but that must have been in their dreams. For all that money a playground with all the latest playground equipment could have been provided in every park and school around Coffs Harbour.
Where is the rest of the money Coffs Harbour City Council its time to come clean?
No smoking laws
We shouldn’t have to choke on someone else’s smoking anywhere in a public place and its about time councils started providing this protection everywhere and any other place where people may congregate like markets, beaches, parks and outside shopping areas. If the laws were more uniform it would also be less confusing for people as well. Standardizing no smoking laws in any public place inside or out would be much easier to enforce.
For more info please go to the new Coffs Harbour Forum:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/coffs_harbour/