Last word on mergers
I am aware there are some folk who say they are tired of reading my letters. Well, this will be my last one on the issue of forced council amalgamations.
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Firstly, may I congratulate the people of Oberon for their determination and willingness to fight and support Oberon councillors and our committee in this long, hard battle against forced mergers/amalgamations.
Nationals leader John Barilaro is quite a hero for Oberon. He actually took the time to come to Oberon and meet with Oberon councillors, some of the Anti-Amalgamation Committee and others.
He listened to our concerns and understood that we were fighting for our democratic right to have local government.
We explained quite clearly what Oberon would lose and how Oberon people felt about forced amalgamations and the lack of representation from the Nationals.
He listened to Cabonne and Oberon. The Orange by-election made it easier to get Mr Barilaro to come and speak with us.
We are now told through a media release from Mr Barilaro that he will be telling the new premier that the Nationals will no longer support forced amalgamations.
Thank goodness. At last the Nationals are seeing sense and under Mr Barilaro’s leadership we can hope they continue to represent the country folk.
We can hope the new premier will also see sense and abolish all mergers/amalgamations, allowing communities their democratic right to local government.
To those who say Oberon Council was wasting ratepayers’ money, there should have been no need to spend any money on court action. All that was necessary was for Premier Mike Baird, Minister for Local Government Paul Toole and Deputy Premier Troy Grant to listen to the people and their concerns.
However, it was also our democratic right to undertake court action.
Premier Berejiklian should now abandon the call for councils to pay the costs of the state in court.
What happens to Paul Toole is up to him. We here in Oberon will find it very difficult to forgive his lack of representation for Oberon.
I can only say thank you to all you wonderful people for supporting council and our committee, thank you so very much.
Thank you also to the Oberon Review for publishing my many letters.
Oberon will stand alone and hopefully all the other councils, whether they have been merged/amalgamated or are still fighting, are allowed to stand alone.
Signing off, I may well go fishing for the first time in my life.
Marjorie Armstrong
Remembering George
I would like to express some of my fond recollections of George Soulios, or Georgie "Fishshop" as we used to call him in our younger days as we could not pronounce his name.
George passed away on January 11 after serving fish, chips, scallops, battered savs and Chiko Rolls to the Oberon community for over 60 years.
All of us young-uns would park our cars between the walnut tree and the Malachi Gilmore Hall picture theatre.
We would go and see a flick and at half-time scurry across the road to Georgie’s for our snacks and milkshake.
We'd woo our girlfriends under that old walnut tree and go back to the theatre for the second half.
When the movies were finished we'd all toddle back to George, in his skinny shop, to order the best fish and chips in town.
In fact, we would find any reason to eat Georgie’s chips.
“With vinegar?” he'd ask. And of course we'd say yes and he would slosh lashings all over the best chips in the world.
Thinking of you fondly George.