Jane is a local. She is highly intelligent, professional, ethical to a tee and a motivating leader. She is a wonderful person to lead our council and I am so excited at the opportunities I see ahead with Jane at the helm. Australia Day was again a wonderful success and the Citizens of the year, Chris Barnett in Narromine and Terri Milgate in Trangie were most worthy winners. 

Council have an incredibly busy period in front of us and the initiatives for improvement are endless. It is the intention of council to systematically examine closely all items of infrastructure and all assets to ensure they are of an acceptable standard.

Some of the facilities are not up to the required standard and these will  face scrutiny and the appropriate response. All the councillors are committed to providing the best level of service that our finances will allow. We will seek to ensure that we utilise these finances in the most efficient and cost effective manner from here forward.

I do wish to thank all those affected by the wet winter for their patience in having roads brought back to an acceptable level. Rural roads are one area of operations that our council is committed to improving over time and our intention is to find areas of inefficiency, remediate  them and fund this roads network more appropriately and comprehensively. This is a major priority of the council.

The other real concern is clearly the levee and  how best we approach this situation. Council is formulating a report for the peer reviewer to highlight the anomalies and inaccuracies that have been presented to government in an effort  to minimise the impact on Narromine. We will apply the appropriate political pressure when given the opportunity and will not accept an outcome based on falsehoods and untruths. The politicians must be made to realise that this is the most serious issue facing the shire and a bureaucratic outcome rather than a sensible outcome will not rest easy with the residents of Narromine.

There is a logical and practical outcome that will be presented to government and we will insist it is given the respect is deserves. The cost of insurance for flood cover has to reflect the threat and given we have had one flood in white man’s history commonsense and fairness must prevail. Finally I wish to congratulate a very dear friend in Kerrie Elder who recently announced her retirement from teaching kids with reading difficulties. Kerrie has 30 plus years of this and has helped hundreds of students achieve a standard beyond their imagination. She has been so committed and caring and deserves the thanks .

Craig Davies