Mayor Brown Came to Town

As we discussed in The Apple,  Mayor Brown  sat in on our submission (Oratia Draft Annual Plan Submission) to the Local Board.

WE requested investment in the Oratia  LAP objectives, the  Oratia Masterplan, Sewerage, and Rates relief for farmers.

Well he must have thought it was pretty interesting, so on Friday 4 April, he popped out West to check out our lovely little valley and  the Oratia Village Halls and Domain.

We (Jane Binsley, Gary Henderson, Penny Sparks) talked with the Mayor about the Domain, A Coffee Shop (which he described as like a Marae of a community), Funding, Sewerage, Rural Communities and Ratepayers groups.

We discussed the possibility of differential farm rates as per shire of Yarra Ranges. (We didn’t get too many nibbles on that hook but worth a crack.)  And he explained the current rating process to us.

We had a look in each of the halls which he agreed were nice spaces. We talked about the school and it’s size of 600 kids which surprised him. And the history of the area and the buildings.And we talked about other rural communities and ratepayers groups.
And we had a brief discussion about the  Oratia Farmers Market and how much we value it and what can be done to support it by council.   We ran out of time for visiting Artisan which was our original plan.
We had a good chat and hopefully he enjoyed his visit, and will know about our little place in the big scheme of things.