This is a relatively inexpensive device available at most electrical equipment retailers and wholesalers and over the internet. The cost to maintain a mains-powered telephone and/or data installation is minimal.

All telephone exchanges have UPS and back-up power supplies; it is part of the due diligence required of providers that they continue to provide essential services in emergencies. Hospitals are also required to have operational and effective UPS and back-up power supplies.

Network authorities are obliged to guarantee the uninterrupted supply of electricity. This should include the implementation of measures to minimise the impact of natural phenomena. Engineering design solutions in anticipation of a flying fox strike is not an unreasonable nor unachievable expectation.

Flying foxes are an essential part of the cycle for rain forests: no flying foxes, no rain forest. It is easy to blame the defenceless when pointing the bone of discontent. It has been said we often do everything within our power to avoid our obligations as intelligent beings to resolve the few simple problems of our own making. If its made by man, it can be fixed by man.

I offer my labor, my skills and knowledge as a contracting electrician, free of charge, to the good doctor to resolve his communication issues. 

It seems the community is making some progress towards removing the bats from our beautiful town.

It has been slow and painful, but we must maintain the rage. The engagement of council, state and federal governments, may finally be underway. We must keep the pressure on all these people, to act on removal of these colonies, and not accept half a result.

Once we rid the bats, we must clean up this disgraceful site. Conservation overlays applying to the gardens must be removed, allowing the site to be returned to beautiful open parkland. Draining the site and removing trees to prevent a return of the bats is a must.

This site breeds mosquitoes and harbours folk who drink and set fires and fill the waters with shopping trolleys and rubbish. If it was returned to parkland, with a waterway and beautiful native shrubs, the whole town could be proud and tourists would actually use it, as would many locals.

This development would assist the museum attract visitors, enhance the Soldiers Club surrounds and may even be a catalyst to improve the derelict look of this part of town and attract council monies for improvements in streetscapes.

Dear me, Mr Brown, haven’t you and your colleagues landed yourselves in bat droppings?

I confess to being a recent arrival and, as such, hesitant to speak out against the Eurobodalla’s native fauna (including its elected representatives), (but) events have made the ensuing observations imperative.

It is a rare day when bats fail to disrupt human activity in my part of the Shire. I endured months of my wife's attention being lavished on My Kitchen Rules, only to hear howls at her inability to discover who won because the power went out for the last ten minutes of the show! This morning, she was denied a cup of tea and a shower. Mr Brown, you and the flying mammals of which you seem oblivious are driving my lovely wife batty.

I retreated to write this letter but no power, equals no computer, equals no communication network. The equation is simple, Mr Brown: no business, no income, no rates. I implore you to take action to rid your shire of the furry menace that threatens our way of life.  

Should you fail, rest assured I may very well vote Green, but never Brown.

How long ago was it that Eurobodalla Shire Council was wringing its hands in anguish at the dire financial straits towards which it was heading without a Special Rate Variation?

Suddenly and almost miraculously, the council finds $2.7 million to purchase the bowling club site in Batemans Bay. This is great news for the vendor, Club Catalina, and will go a long way to restoring that club's own financial health, but is it good news for ratepayers?

In the tenders section of the Sydney Morning Herald (May 3), the council called for expressions of interest from investors to partner with the council in the potential redevelopment of the site, along with the existing aquatic centre and adjacent sporting fields. What is disconcerting is the future-use criteria, which encompasses everything from arts, cultural and cinema building (remember Hanging Rock), tourist accommodation, seniors living, conference centre, restaurants,cafes etc.

I'm not sure whether I'm being too cynical in suggesting that the council has outlaid a significant sum of ratepayers’ money without really understanding the feasibility of any possible redevelopment. No doubt any adverse consequences would be borne by the ratepayer and probably underpin the rationale for a further special rate variation.

If only life in the real world was so simple.