Mayoral Message - February 2024

Published on 01 April 2024

In April last year, Kristy McBain MP turned the sod on the Anglicare Crisis housing project adjacent to St Clements Church in Church Street. On March 7, I was pleased to join Kristy, Bishop Mark Short, Rev Luke Collings and representatives of Anglicare to inspect progress on this important and much needed facility. A huge thanks to Councillor Jasmin Jones who organised the morning’s visit. It’s always exciting to see progress in our valley and I am excited to see the outcome!

I was truly impressed to learn that since the introduction of the Return and Earn scheme in 2017, 11 billion containers have been recycled! In the Yass Valley alone, almost 25 million items have been returned. This is an outstanding result and is so good for our environment. Prior to its introduction, thousands of tins and bottles were cleaned up and consigned to landfill during Clean Up Australia Day.

It was an exciting day on March 7 to hear local MP, Kristy McBain’s announcement of $1 Million to restore the historic Yass Showground grandstand.

Thank you to Kristy McBain for meeting with myself and Council CEO, Chris Berry to discuss a whole range of pressing matters facing our  community.

On March 9, I was honoured to attend the celebrate the 175th anniversary of the Bowning Public School! As well as the beautiful school grounds the whole village put its best foot forward for the weekend. Thanks too, to all the volunteers who worked so hard to cut grass and generally tidy up the village, a great display of community spirit which is clearly very much reflected in the school itself. I had a great time catching up with Councillors Kim Turner, Jasmin Jones and Cecil Burgess as well as our local member Wendy Tuckerman MP.

The 175th birthday for Bowning Public School prompted me to check whether schooling in Bowning pre-dated or postdated Local Government in Yass, I checked the Mayors chain, each link is inscribed with the Mayors name and years of service. l found that James Cottrell was the first Mayor in 1873. Google confirmed that the Municipal District of Yass was created in March 1873 twenty-four years after public education commenced in Bowning.

Another note of historic trivia, the Mayoral chain was presented to the Yass Municipal Council by the Yass Rotary Club in 1967. Our Rotary Club recently celebrated their 70th anniversary. Thank you to both the Bowning Public School and the Yass Rotary Club for their long years of community service.

It as a real privilege to join with members of the Yass SPIN Foundation, teachers, and pupils from Berinba school and other community members in welcoming Warren (Woz) Acott in Coronation Park on the 20th of March.

Warren 66, a former truck driver was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease and rode his twenty-year-old lawn mower 800 kilometres to Canberra Parliament House. Along with his support team "Woz" is collecting signatures on his petition calling for MND to be added to the list of notifiable diseases.

Warren happily talked at length with the children, answering their questions and talking about the reasons for his journey and what he hopes to achieve.

He proved once again, the adage that real hero's do not wear capes, but he did get to wear the Mayoral Chain after I declared him acting Mayor of Yass for fifteen minutes, in recognition of his dedication and commitment to his objective of having MND listed as a notifiable disease.

Thank you, Warren, and to everyone who came along to offer support and sign the petition. I was pleased to see Woz later talking to the Prime Minister. Congratulations!

On March 21, I attended the NSW Seniors Festival Comedy Show out at Batemans Bay as part of the Yass Valley Seniors Festival! After a slightly cold start in Yass, I had a great time with community members, finishing the trip off with fresh fish and chips by the bay.

On March 28, I was pleased to welcome four new Australian citizens to the Yass Valley community. Please join me in welcoming Anthony, Nancy, Martha, and Dirk!

Until next month,

Allan McGrath