Mayor4Unley

Major felling of trees at Parkside ... There has been a major uproar by residents about the felling of so many trees at 186 Greenhill Road, Parkside just before Christmas ... and 4-5 more trees are planned to be removed. Residents are just so annoyed by what has happened. It happened without any warning and Council had no prior knowledge of the planned activity. A review has revealed that all the the trees felled were what is classed as 'non-regulated' and the property owner had a legal right to remove them. This is a legal right imposed by the State Government. What was a forest is now just 5 trees. One is scheduled to be removed soon. The other 4 trees are what is classed as 'regulated' and they require planning approval. I understand that approval will be considered in January/February 2018 by the Council Assessment Panel. I am sure that this meeting will be well attended by local residents.

The media is being a bit fanciful of late, building up the high expectations of Nick Xenophon at the next SA State election in March 2018. They now have Nick as possible Premier; if he wins enough seats. The likely outcome is that Nick's SA Best won't field enough candidates to give Nick the numbers to become Premier. Yes, he will win a good handful of seats; but certainly not a bucket-full. Here's a scenario ... What if Labor, Liberal and SA Best each get ~ 1/3 of the seats. It may be that SA Best gets to form a coalition with Labor or Liberal; and with such a deal, maybe Nick would be Premier. A preferable outcome would be Nick getting a handful of the best of Labor (a hard pick) and the best of the Liberals (a harder pick) and getting them to defect from their party and form a Government to truely represent the people. This new coalition Government would have Nick X as Premier, Jay Weatherill as Minister for Energy and Batteries and Steven Marshall as Mi...

Bravo Butcher 👍 On Friday I went to the local butcher at Goodwood; BTW it's one of the best butcher shops in SA! Anyway, I went to collect the Christmas order; before the rush on Saturday. I thought, as a treat I would get the dog a couple bones; some nice beef rib bones; the safest type for dogs. I was staggered to learn that the butcher had no bones; not a single bone. However, I was pleasantly surprised to hear that the entire stock of bones had been donated to the RSPCA/AWL. What a nice Christmas gesture. It reflects the general goodwill that pervades the shopping strip @ Goodwood. My dog gets no bone for Christmas, but the dogs at the animal shelters will have a nice treat 👍 When next considering making a donation to charity, why not send a few dollars to the Animal Welfare League. They do so much with so little. It's a great cause!

An Aussie Christmas tradition is to pick your first home grown tomatoes before 25 December. There is often a competition amongst friends and other gardeners in your street. There was much joy (to me) when I picked my first on 14 December. Yesterday I picked another 6. I'm not boasting, but it is now starting to feel like Christmas. No more tasteless tomatoes bought from the shop. Nothing beats a home grown tomato dressed with basil leaves, cracked pepper and a drizzle of good olive oil. A healthy breakfast with toast!

Each week I receive multiple phone calls from scammers. And they get an earful of abuse before I hang up. They are absolute scum; modern day thieves. The banks are concerned and regularly send out warnings. Here's an extract of a recent communication from a bank ... ... The scam involves a caller posing as an employee of a large telco, utility provider or computer company. The caller will usually advise they are calling you because your PC has malicious software, help is needed to catch a criminal, or to recover an outstanding debt owed to a government body. Callers may become quite aggressive, or threaten you with prosecution, if you do not comply with their request. We strongly recommend you simply hang up if you receive this type of call. If you believe the call was legitimate, we recommend you return the call to the company on a trusted number found in the yellow pages or on the company's website. How this type of scam works: The caller will gene...

For years I have been secretly breeding Agapanthus. Standard colours are normally blue and white and a mild pink; with a few other variations. This year I was over-joyed with my bright pink candy striped creation. Those hours spent late at night under a full moon with a fine horse hair brush cross-pollinating and doing the under the leaf tickle, yielded a truly wonderful flower. I have called it  Candy Striped Pink Agapanthus (aka. Aga-BS-729).

I'm just so happy. My Sturt's Desert Pea has started to flower in the garden at home. It will be a mass of flowers in a few weeks. The flowers are just so sensual.

Good news for short term shoppers at Goodwood. Unley Council intends to install four 1 hour parking spaces on Surrey Street, on the north side near Goodwood Road. This will be ideal for short term shoppers eg. people going to the Chemist or Post Office. This has been the outcome of a request to me from a resident. It is good to see Council rapidly respond to the request from the community. ps It is likely that by the time the signs are installed in February 2018, two of the parking spaces will be limited to 30 minutes.

Beware opening a scammer's con this Christmas The ACCC is warning the community to be wary of scammers trying to ruin their Christmas holidays. “Scammers often try to take advantage of people during the busy Christmas period and prey on our vulnerabilities at this time of year. For example, they may take advantage of you looking for a good deal on a family holiday, searching for a loved one’s present at an online store, or even that you’re expecting a present from someone through the post.” Watch out for three common holiday season scams: Travel scams: scammers trick their victims into believing they’ve won a travel prize or scored a really good deal on a travel package, like a cruise. Unfortunately these seemingly too-good-to-be-true holidays are nothing more than a scammer’s con. In the past 12 months, nearly $86,000 has been lost to this scam, with about 1750 reports. Online shopping scams: scammers will set up believable looking online stores to trick pe...

Sam Dastyari must re-affirm his allegiance and loyalty to Australia. He may consider attending an Australia Day Citizenship Ceremony to make the pledge (again). It may be useful in his next job.