Today I have the pleasure of announcing our Senior Citizen of the Year at a function held in conjunction with the Dubbo Neighbourhood Centre. I am lucky enough to sit on the judging committee to select the winner each year and this year was no exception with the quality of the candidates. Literally any one of the nominations would have been a worthy winner of the award and it is quite staggering to see the contributions made by seniors in our community. They are typically involved in a variety of organisations and keep our community vibrant and engaged. Thank you to all of the people who contribute to our community.

The safety improvements are continuing on schedule at the South Dubbo Weir. You can view ongoing photos of the weir changes at http://dubbo.photosentinel.com.au and next week we will try to recreate a photo from 1944 of the original weir construction.

This Friday I will be in Wodonga presenting at a conference called Regionalism 2.0 which is created by an organisation called Regional Capitals Australia. I will be discussing the concept of Evocities and how that has been so successful in delivering more population to the seven Evocities. I am sure there are many other parts of the nation that can learn from what we have achieved in NSW in just over five years of running the campaign.

The inaugural Greater Fun Run is being held this Sunday and I encourage everyone to participate. I am on restricted running at the moment due to a Killer Kangaroo taking me out and breaking three ribs in the process but I will still go along and walk one of the shorter distances as I think it is a great event for Dubbo. It is not very often that you have the chance to run on an international standard athletics track and through the streets of Dubbo.

We close the pool for the cooler months this Friday. Some have questioned that logic given the school holidays are coming up. The reality is that it is just too expensive to keep the pool open – especially when patronage would be so low. When you consider all costs, the expenses of the pool total $3,427 per day to keep it open. As the nights cool down, it becomes even more expensive to heat the pool. In peak times, we have up to 750 people per day going through the turnstiles which, at $4.20 per person, still means we lose $277 per day. The last Sunday in March saw only 115 people attend the pool and by the first Saturday in April it was down to 51 people. That means we lost $3,212.80 to open the pool last Saturday. Our experience has shown that numbers dwindle and costs go up so we have to stop the losses at some point. My apologies if you wanted to use the pool during the holidays but at a cost of approximately $50,000 to keep it open for two weeks, it just isn’t viable.

Councillor Mathew Dickerson

Mayor of the City of Dubbo

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