Mayoral Column - Wednesday 27 May

We are starting to see life in the Snowy Monaro return to normal with Council’s customer service desks reopening.

To ensure community and staff safety, a number of social distancing measures will be in place at the Berridale, Bombala, Cooma and Jindabyne offices. While staff are looking forward to helping people in person, if your enquiry can be submitted over the phone or email, that is still preferred. If you need to sit in to view a public exhibition document, please phone ahead to make an appointment.

Discussions on the opening of the 2020 snow season are ongoing with the key stakeholders and agencies, such as NSW Health and Police, focussed on how the season will progress.

The snow resorts and local businesses are working hard to ensure social distancing measures are in place when the season is given the green light.

A snow season would bring some relief to our local businesses who have been struggling with drought, bushfires and COVID-19. Our small businesses have been doing it tough through the lack of tourists and it’s important we give our tourism industry every opportunity to recover as it’s our main economic driver.

From June 1 travel to regional NSW will resume. We expect to see people returning to the Snowy Monaro, not only for the snow, but for the many other offerings we have including the last part of the official fishing season.

Our region relies so heavily on tourism. If we work together and follow health guidelines we can welcome visitors to the region and continue to stop the spread of COVID-19.

At last week’s Council Meeting, a very professional presentation was delivered by Youth Councillor Lani Holfter. Lani asked Council to support an exchange program for our Youth Council and Councillors were in agreement that this would be a worthwhile endeavour to support.

A recommendation came before Council to delay the replacement of the Jindabyne amenities block in the town centre. Council voted against this and will progress with the replacement of this facility in its current location.

Councillor Peter Beer - Mayor of Snowy Monaro Regional Council