00:00So, good morning everyone. Mayor Patricia White here, and I'm just going to give you an update on last night's council meeting, the first one for January 2026.
00:11Well, did we have some technical problems? And we were late starting the meeting, but I really want to thank the staff who were able to get it up and running for us.
00:21Yes, it did take some time, but it gave us time to have a bit of a general discussion with councillors. At the end of the day, we started late, but we got through it.
00:31So, thank you for your patience if you were watching it last night.
00:35Now, what did we discuss at the council meeting? So, I'm just going to give you a couple of highlights.
00:40First of all, councillors acknowledged the Australia Day Awards for the Shoalhaven, and congratulations to Megan Dover,
00:47who won the Citizen Award for the Shoalhaven. Much well-deserved with all her work.
00:55What else did we discuss? We discussed the contributions plan.
00:59Now, people, that's going out on exhibition, I think, around the 18th of February.
01:04So, make sure you have a look. People complain that when we do infrastructure, we do that infrastructure,
01:11who's paying for the roads, the sewer, all of those type of things.
01:15This is a new contributions plan that developers will have to pay for.
01:20Have a look and provide your comments.
01:22What else? Great news on the roads.
01:25We awarded an attender for the upgrade of Yowal and George Evan Lane out at West Mowra.
01:32But also, we discussed at length the parameters for the 26-27 budget, which will come out on public exhibition in April.
01:42So, this is how we're going to develop it.
01:44It talks about what rises we're going to do in fees and charges, et cetera, what we're going to do with the rates,
01:51what we're going to do with the water, sewer, all of these things.
01:55So, have a good read.
01:57Watch that space in April, and you'll be able to make comment on how much it's going to cost you for the rates in 2026-27.
02:05So, thanks, everyone.
02:07It was a great meeting, but make sure you watch it on the Council website.
02:11So, we're going to take a look and see if we are going to make sure you'll be able to make sure you'll be able to make sure you'll be able to make sure you hit the number.
02:19So, here we go.
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