Gary Cooper - 11 April 2017

Gary Cooper made the below comments at the Ordinary Council Meeting 11 April 2017.

Reading some of the Progress Association history last night I learned that the THPA is 60 years old this year.

During its existence the Association has represented the community in the relationship between the village community and the various Eurobodalla Councils. From my reading the relationship has primarily been cordial and effective although there have been disputes as one would expect. It appears that such issues have been coped with.

During the 60 years the Progress Association & the village have built 2 community halls, which with the passage of time were passed to the Council for management. Subsequently the Council and the Progress Association formed a Sunset Committee to rationalise this situation. Following community consultation the community decided that the village could only afford one hall. This agreement resulted in the Progress Hall being demolished and the land sold.

The Sunset Committee agreed that moneys raised from the sale of the land would be committed to the Tuross community

The first payment was of $200,000 to the Council as the community’s contribution for the repair of Kyla Hall.

The community also accepted the loss of $60,000 as the land was sold approximately this amount below the reserve.

This is now past history.

On reflexion the village community sees themselves as different to other towns in the shire due to the villages stewardship of the Council resulting from the peninsula land being classified as Community land rather than Crown land. For many years there was a belief that Tuross was less important to the Shire than the other community’s in the shire.  This attitude encouraged the role of the Progress Association’s in the community to being the major interface to the Council by helping the community identify, discuss and propose solutions to issues of concern. In Tuross this scope covers an extensive range of activities which results in the Association representing the village community extensively, especially with the Council. With current membership at 127 and growing, we are the major representative of the community and have been for most of the last 60 years and at the same time have not had to pay for the use of the any of the community’s facilities. This was despite the fact that the Council managed these halls for about 30 years of the period.

To conclude I ask you to not change history and introduce a fee for the Progress Association use of the Tuross community facilities.