Insensitive approach

I have been reading with interest the community’s collective outrage with the position of Baw Baw Shire Council in regard to its insensitive dealings with eviction of Scope from its George St premises.

On July 1, 2022 BBSC wiped their hands from supplying services to 30 per cent of shire residents who are either aged or disabled in some manner and since then their total lack of empathy has come to the fore.

My personal experience with this BBSC behaviour manifested early in 2023 with a road scheme along the Alex Goudie Native Park in Drouin where the BBSC refused to put in place disabled parking even though it’s a requirement under the mandatory Disability Discrimination Act 1992. That act means you cannot discriminate against people of different races, religions, genders and you must make all public places accessible to those that require assistance in mobility.

This parking was requested prior to construction of the road scheme but refused. The BBSC even went on later at a different forum citing $200,000 to convert two spaces to disabled parking when a few months earlier it was costless.

The treatment of Scope is appalling in this enlightened age. Council, abides by the new gender norms, pay homage to our indigenousness yet treats the most vulnerable most unfairly. The BBSC believes it has a right, as the governing body, to evict Scope from its entrenched and original position.

The land in question was donated to Scope and or the community to enable them to fundraise to build the physical environment that we now know as Scope.

The Warragul Shire was a completely different entity than the current Baw Baw Shire. It would be most interesting to see who owned the original title to the land in George St. Was it bequeathed to the Warragul Shire by a community member back in the past to be put to use like a community non for profit organisation like Scope? Or was it Crown land and when passed onto Scope had a value of a thousand or two?

What God given right has the BBSC executive got to dismiss a caring and required disability service from its known location, (to its participants), with no back up plans and having pulled all assistance to the aged or disabled mid 2022.

I invite the executive to go visit organisations like Scope. Perhaps join a session on a Wednesday morning at the Warragul Leisure Centre hydro pool and see the pure joy of the disabled participants and their carers. This is what Scope and other organisations such as Scope does. They make us feel human.

Peter Finlay, Drouin

Signs of cooling

When the main stream media report the fact that this years first snowfall has occured almost two months before the official opening date of the snow season, how then can this equate to claims of the global warming alarmist faction.

Would not the very early commencement of the snow season suggest that the planet maybe cooling?

Lynton Malley, Cloverlea