DECEMBER
December 2: Retailers happy with early indications of a good retail festive season.
December 3: Skydiver tells of a terrifying 14,000 feet free-fall when his parachute failed to open.
December 4: Police search for a man who bashed a man and woman in the CBD.
December 5: Rock fall at Cunningham’s Gap causes huge amount of heavy traffic to divert through Toowoomba, bringing Range traffic to a halt during roadworks.
December 6: Police use new impoundment laws to take 55 hoons off the road.
December 7/8: Bennett St residents in shock after receiving power bills.
December 9: Toowoomba man killed when his motorcycle crashed at Kennilworth.
December 10: Qi’Lin Restaurant owners fear closure
due to lack of a chef after a change in laws for skilled migrants.
December 11: An email leak reveals State Government is accusing Federal Government of dragging the chain on the Toowoomba Bypass.
December 12: Heritage campaigners believe more caution is needed on development in the city.
December 13: Toowoomba South State School and Charlton State School close after a combined 263 years of educational service.
December 14/15: Toowoomba retailers rejoice at the surge in Christmas sales as keen shoppers get in early to buy presents well ahead of schedule.
December 16: Toowoomba vet wants the community to know his former West St surgery is no longer occupied after
finding a rescued possum in a box that had died before he found it.
December 17: Toowoomba girl Prudence Melom didn’t think her story of pain and hope as a refugee in Africa was extraordinary until it won major national radio competition, Heywire.
December 18: A gloomy mid-year budget announcement has not stopped the Toowoomba bypass from receiving its full $700 million in funding over the next six years.
December 19: Luxury home buyers spent almost $11 million on the city’s nine most expensive house sales last year
December 20: Darling Downs couple Aleksandr Taylor-Gough and Brooke Bentley had the night of a lifetime when Aleksandr proposed with the help of the Gold Lotto City Hall Light Spectacular team in front
of a crowd of thousands.
December 21/22: Soon-to-wed couple Meagan Lyons and Kent Ferris have been left out of pocket and desperate for answers with Toowoomba restaurant Platform 9 ordered into liquidation.
December 23: Toowoomba Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s chief executive, Greg Johnson, said Christmas purchases in Toowoomba were exceeding trader’s expectations.
December 24: Angry drivers had trouble keeping their Christmas spirit alive as last-minute shopping plunged the Toowoomba CBD into a massive traffic jam.
December 26: A Wilsonton Heights mother was shocked when her children discovered porn on the hard drive of a second-hand Playstation 3. Kristy Howard wants other parents to be wary of what
could be stored on second-hand goods.
December 27: Teenager fronts court charged with bashing a taxi driver and assaulting a woman and man who found the fleeing 19-year-old in their Perth St yard. The cab driver was taken to hospital with cuts and bruises to his face.
December 28/29: Mercury rises in Toowoomba as heatwave takes hold. December 30: The cityscape will look very different in 2014 as major construction works will be open for business in the new year including Wellcamp Brisbane West Airport, Northpoint Shopping Centre and the refurbishment of the Heritage Bank.
December 31: Toowoomba Regional Council’s report card for 2013 sent home to mum and dad — the ratepayers — and it’s a pass.