This week, Shoalhaven City Council released the results of its community satisfaction survey. On the happiness index, we scored pretty well – higher, in fact, than the national average. We are happy about our lifestyles, relationships, sense of safety. But the happiness starts to slide back when it comes to council. Roads remain a concern, as does the time in takes to get development applications approved. On overall performance, though, council gets a pretty reasonable rating and for good reason. Generally, it does an amazing job with limited resources and often cops an unfair bollocking from residents who don’t fully understand what it is and is not responsible for.

Tardiness with DAs is concerning because that is a brake on the local economy. Council is having trouble recruiting and retaining staff and, as we revealed this week, is considering raising staff wages so it can compete with organisations offering better salary packages in other regions. Predictably, this news sparked an outcry but at the end of the day if you want stuff done, you need the staff to do it.

Our thoughts go out to the people at StrongBuild, the Berry based building company forced into voluntary administration during the week. These things are never good but coming so close to Christmas makes it even sadder. We’re a generous community and I’m sure we will rally around those affected by the collapse.

On that note, we see the Nowra Kmart Wishing Tree has been launched. It’s a great initiative with The Salvos that for 31 years has been ensuring disadvantaged kids enjoy some Christmas cheer. How could you not like that?

Finally a shout-out to Jack and June Tarlington who celebrated their 70^th wedding anniversary recently. That’s a long innings of wedded bliss. We wish you well.

Catch you next week.