Letters March 2016

By Madeleine Gray on March 15, 2016 in Other

CLOVELLY LIFEGUARDS ROCK

Hey! My name is Nathan and I’m from Melbourne. My family and I drove to Sydney on December 30 for a two-week stay in the Eastern Suburbs to visit family. I was staying with friends in Bronte and spent as much time at the beaches swimming and surfing as I could.

On December 31 we headed to Clovelly for a swim. We were having a ball jumping off the side and into the water. It was a bit rough, but we didn’t care – it was a beautiful day. We decided to go around to the rock shelf and jump into the water, swim around and catch the waves in. While my dad and I were standing there waiting for the right time to jump in, a freak wave came along and toppled us over on the rocks. Our feet, legs, arms and back were shredded to pieces on the sharp as razors barnacles.

Luckily for us, my dad was able to pick me up and get us to safety, but even luckier was that Josh, the lifeguard on duty at Clovelly that day, had recognised that we could be in a world of trouble from the other side of Clovelly Beach and had bolted around to help us out.

He cleaned out my feet and bandaged them up as best he could. He put me over his shoulder and walked me all the way to the road and put me in the car so my dad and I could be taken to the hospital. I spent two nights there as I had to have surgery to make sure all my wounds were cleaned properly and to have stitches in both my feet where there were pretty deep gashes.

I am writing this letter because I wanted to highlight not only how dangerous it can be out on those rocks, because the water can be so unpredictable, but mainly to give a massive shout out to Josh Reading and all the lifeguards on the beaches who are there to help us to stay safe. They are legends and heroes and I can’t thank them all enough.

I am currently doing my Surf Rescue Certificate in Melbourne at Mordialloc Life Saving Club and have only patrolled the beach once, but because of Josh I am going to keep going with my lifesaving and hopefully I’ll be a lifeguard one day – who knows, maybe in Sydney, starring in Bondi Rescue!

Nathan, Melbourne

TYPO IN PREVIOUS ISSUE

I trust that there is a typo in The Beast’s February edition on page 26 (Bondi Gets A Facelift, The Beast, February 2016) in estimating the cost of the pavilion upgrade to be “around $38 billion dollars”?
Please put my mind at ease.

Michael Lakeman, Bronte

BILLION OR MILLION?

Hi guys,

I’m reading the copy of The Beast that was dropped off today. You quote the estimated costs of the pavilion upgrade at $38 billion. That can’t be right, can it? That’s $623K per person who receives a copy of The Beast. Thanks for all your work. I love reading The Beast.

Matt Hehman

It certainly was a typo! It was only a petty $38 million – Ed

HELICOPTER HIGHWAY

Am I the only one who thinks Bondi Beach is a helicopter highway these days? Is it getting busier or am I just sleep deprived and grumpy. It would seem every time I achieve a bit of calm at the beach a bloody helicopter flies by, or worse, hovers over the beach.

Regards,

Cranky Beachgoer (Kat Clarke), Bondi

EZYMART IN UNSUITABLE HABITAT

Dear Ezymart,

I politely ask that your innocuous and tawdry neon display gracing the Clovelly Village (West) only serve a six-month term before quietly retiring to its rightful and seemingly suitable Bondi Junction location. If the unyielding debate about amalgamations has taught us anything, it’s that geographical boundaries are everything in the Eastern Suburbs.
Yours sincerely,

Lucinda Needham, Clovelly

UNFAIR FINES

How is this for double standards by Waverley Council: I have just been fined $106 by Council for being several days late in renewing my residential parking permit. Unlike most companies and government departments, Waverley Council does not send out renewal notices or reminders as a courtesy. Nor do its rangers leave a note on the windscreen reminding the driver the permit has expired and asking him/her to renew it within, say, five days, as would seem good corporate practice (there is no financial gain involved in not renewing).

Yet – and this is rich – the same council a year ago ran its fleet of 90 vehicles unregistered, and therefore uninsured, over the Christmas/New Year period (Wentworth Courier, January 14, 2015). These included the mayor’s car! Officials blamed a “procedural gap” for this oversight, but we do not know if the council was ever fined. Mine also was an oversight, or “procedural gap” in council newspeak, and I have been fined.

I have had a permit for about 15 years since the inception of the scheme, and feel I and other ratepayers deserve more consideration from this authoritarian and avaricious council.

Of course, the real reason for the council’s “procedural gap” was that it had recently sacked 25 staff without forewarning, including those in charge of the vehicle fleet.

It appears, in Waverley jurisdiction, there is one law for the high and mighty and one for the others.

It is typical of a falangist-like mindset where the rich and powerful think they should be immune to the laws that govern ordinary people.

Philip Grenard, Queens Park

GLARING ERROR

Hi, in your trivia quiz, the language ‘Chinese’ was offered as an answer to one of the questions. How disappointing. And embarrassing. ‘Chinese’ is not a language, in the same way ‘Indian’, ‘African’ or ‘European’ are not languages. This is a perfect example highlighting Australia’s ignorance about other countries. C’mon guys, smarten up!

Carol Schwarz, North Bondi

CENTENNIAL PARK TREES

Dear Beast,

The clearing of the trees in Centennial Parklands along Alison Road is a prime example of what is wrong with planning in NSW, where local councils and communities are ignored for business interests. A light rail route on the south side of Alison Road was chosen and supported only to be changed, reportedly, solely to benefit the Australian Turf Club and its plans for a hotel and car park at the racecourse. Randwick Council and the local community were ignored, it seems, due to the intervention of the Turf Club. Now we have lost a green corridor of mature trees and a chunk has been hacked into the Parklands, which is the lungs of the east. What remains is a wasteland of woodchips – barren and depressing. The busy Darley Road/Alison Road intersection, at the gateway to our suburbs, will be a future gridlock nightmare and thousands of patrons will be forced to cross Alison Road to reach the racecourse. All of this could have been avoided by sticking to the original plan. These events could be taken straight from the script of the ABC’s realist comedy Utopia, which mocks such government spin-based decision making, but, more likely, it is evidence that planning has gone well and truly off the rails in NSW.

Stephen Lightfoot, Bronte

LIBERAL VALDALISM BIG AND SMALL

Instead of building a state of the art public transport system like any other mega city of equal standing – London, Paris, New York and Moscow, for example – with efficient underground transport links, the outdated surface transport model ‘light rail’ of the Liberal Party in power at local, state, and federal level is being pushed relentlessly, never mind the environmental cost. And the costs are huge with yet another “six weeping fig trees of exceptional significance on Wansey Road getting the chop in Randwick to make way for the light rail; the corner of Wansey Road and Alison Road has already lost 13 trees which stood 20 metres tall. None of the 62 trees already removed along Alison Road, Wansey Road, and Anzac Parade have been relocated, according to the Transport NSW spokesperson, Laura Aubusson” (Southern Courier).

But to maintain environmental cosmetics in the hope of camouflaging its ecological vandalism, Liberal MP Bruce Notley-Smith suggested a Mickey Mouse “2c worth on litter” initiative. This can hardly make up for the environmental wreckage of his party visible to all at Alison Road, Wansey Road, and Anzac Parade. And there are more trees to come – or should I say go – on Anzac Parade in the coming days.

But wait, there is more! The ecological destruction orchestrated by the state Liberal Party is replicated at federal level with land clearing and “more drilling – more spilling”. This comes as “BP explores drilling options off the South Australian coast five years after the Deepwater Horizon disaster” (news.com.au, September 7, 2015).

Meanwhile, at a global level, the Liberal environmental damage continues with the denial of global warming conveniently cosmetised up – camouflaged – by its new “Tony Abbott-light” Prime Minister, Mr Turnbull, offering the same policies only now framed in a nicer way. Whether at local and state level or at federal and global level, putting lipstick on a pig may not change the pig – it just looks nicer.

Thomas Klikauer, Coogee

I’M TRIPPIN’

Hi,

Some years ago The Beast published my letter congratulating it for the “Trippin’ with Todd” short stories, which have occasioned me considerable enjoyment. It seems that they will no longer appear in The Beast. If that is so The Beast will be poorer for it. Please bring Trippin’ back.

Greg Maidment, Bronte

DISABLED AND DISGRUNTLED

The silly season has come and gone, and cars circled Bronte Road, Pacific Street and surrounds like mad. Half hour parking does not deter them: once parked they are there all day. A fine split four to five ways is worth it to them, and that’s if they do get caught: very few wardens come round on weekends. May I suggest to the drivers of these cars to drop their families and food off at the beach and go elsewhere up the hill and park, get a bus or walk down? It will be less hassle and allow a disabled senior like myself to find a parking space near my home.
Yours,

A tired Bronte senior

BONDI LIFEGUARDS AND WESTFIELD IN THE BAD BOOKS

1. What has happened to the electronic information board down at Bondi Beach at the lifeguard tower displaying water temp, tides and weather? Seriously Waverley Council, if it is broken get a whiteboard and a sharpie at least to update the daily beach info. It can’t be that hard.

2. Westfield Bondi Junction has done away with the Bronte Road side ‘everyman’s food court’ area, apparently to put in a H&M or other similar big brand overseas fashion label. So much for the ordinary people or families who don’t want to spend $15-20 a head on the fancy food in the other food court. That really is disappointing, Westfield, but I guess it’s indicative of big business today.

Con Vallis, Bondi Junction

COUNCIL CLEAN-UPS

Attention all councillors,

I see that Randwick Council has two clean-ups per year, plus two bookable ones. Why is Waverley Council so mean to its ratepayers in only having one pick-up per year?

Council should do more for its long-suffering ratepayers. Council has no compunction submitting its ratepayers to horrific greed. It is exploitative. It’s a pity councillors don’t have to put up with the non-stop roar of the gigantic vehicles squeezing along Dellview Lane for months now, and the dirt generated by the whole fiasco.

How the poor victims at the end of the already over exploited Wonderland Avenue are surviving, I don’t know.
Will you ever put a stop to the already over exploited vicinity?

K. Tangney

REPLY TO MAYOR

Dear Sally,

I am overwhelmed at your feelings for me (Letters, The Beast, February 2016) but, as a retired full-time journalist and long-time resident within the Waverley Municipality, I have more time than most to observe the lack of foresight that goes into much of the work undertaken by the council.

1. You state in your letter that the forming of a Global City by the merging of councils “would not have been good for our residents”. Why then is it going ahead with very little input from the residents other than those lucky enough to receive notification from the council and asked for their opinion?

Woollahra Council is still fighting the fight and its residents have taken a firm stand against the amalgamation.

Whether this is considered good, bad, or indifferent, the people have been given a chance to stand up for what they believe in, rather than being dictated to by a State Government that really has no idea of what goes on within these communities.

2. I understand the timing of the project at Bondi was stymied by a major event such as City2Surf, but as this major event only happens once a year, surely there were alternatives.

3. As far as the works undertaken at the top of St Thomas Street goes, it was not until the residents made a stand and objected to the original plan of a roundabout that the plans were changed. Once again people power proved the winner.

4. The work within “our beautiful” Waverley Cemetery is an odd one. You state that the residents had requested that work for a long time, but I find it hard to believe that those living in Trafalgar Street have not protested more about being left out of the loop as far as a new boundary fence is concerned.

The so-called “new pickets” along that boundary are a joke and there are metal poles jutting out along a well-used path causing a hazard for those who use that path regularly.

There was never really an issue about the orange tape in Trafalgar Street, but surely there is an issue with the amount of red tape that still stands within the cemetery where some of the walls collapsed some time ago. This to me would be more of a priority than new paths.

Maybe you should take a walk along those newly surfaced paths and observe the unkempt graves and overgrown paths between the graves.

5. Yes, I will give you time-out on the installation of a new clock at Bronte.

6. Ah, the coral trees. An issue close to my heart as I regularly walk through the beautiful Bronte Gully and have survived the wrath of these feral trees as they tumble over the well-used path. And, yes Sally, I am familiar with these trees as I have written many a story about them, or haven’t you noticed?

7. I have heard conflicting stories about the RSL site, the latest saying the DA has got the nod and that access would be in Chesterfield Lane. But after nearly four years you really don’t know who to believe.

The RSL development pales into insignificance with Waverley Council being usurped by the State Government for approval of a massive development at St Catherine’s School. As if the traffic isn’t bad enough now!

Anyway Sally, love your work. I’ll have a large cappuccino with two…

Duncan Horscroft, Bronte