It was a fiery meeting between Griffith City Council and the residents of Yenda on Wednesday night, and both sides left with a clear understanding of the other.
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Yenda Progress Association submitted a full A4 sized list of questions, and had their answers explained in full by Director of Utilities Graham Gordon, Director of Infrastructure and Operations Phil King and General Manager Brett Stonesteet.
Yenda resident Marilyn Hams was pleased with community meeting, saying “it was great to see council come and engage with us, we all know and understand where we go from here”.
Flooding
Discussions on capital works, maintenance, grants and services took place, with issues relating to flood measures, cemetery upkeep and playground issues taking centre stage.
“The last time we had a community meeting out the mayor gave a commitment on behalf of council that Yenda wouldn’t flood again. And that is a commitment that council stands to to this day and we will continue to stand by that. And it will happen by the end of this year,” Mr Stonestreet said.
“The construction will be on the ground and there will be supplementary action taken to ensure the key parties: Council, Murrumbidgee Irrigation and the SES are signed up to a document that has been researched and back by science and studies and flow rates and all of that technical jargon … we will demonstrate council is dedicated to Yenda not flooding again.”
Mr Gordon gave a detailed description of how the combined $1.2 million worth of funding committed last year by State, Federal and Local governments would see the removal of old concrete timber flood gates and replaced by brand new flood gates, with construction done this year.
Playground
In regards to the playground, which residents say is unsuitable for a number of reasons including the steel cement slide and train being too hot in the sun, and the shade cloth being to small, Council said the $42,000 park upgrade was done with community consultation and designed in a way that suited a number of age ranges.
Council said funding to upgrade the park to include an additional shade cloth, mushroom sprinkler, concrete area for handball and a basketball hoop will be looked at in the future, but there was no room in this year’s budget.
Council said they would also prepare costing to construct a toilet, an all-weather car park and culvert, for the Yenda cemetery, and the project would be considered by council will all other priorities.
Silo Art
The question was also put to council about securing funding to paint the wheat silos and council water tanks in Yenda.
Council replied while it was in principle a good idea, the cost to paint the initial mural and the inevitable ongoing maintenance costs posed a major challenge.
Thanks
Cr Stonestreet said it was great to have a forum with the Yenda community, with prior consideration enabled to give accurate and full responses.
“I would just like to thank the Yenda Progress Association for putting together their thoughts down on paper… it gives us some time to prepare good responses and not take issues on notice.”
At the end of the meeting, Mr Rossetto thanked the council for their time and effort put into the meeting.
