As a small country town, as soon as many of our local students finish their education, they leave town for better job prospects.

The majority never return to settle and raise families, meaning – looking into the future – if there is nothing to hold them in Toodyay, we will have an aging community.

So, when you sign that next petition or discuss drilling by Chalice Mining in Julimar Forest over a cuppa, please consider our youth, who might be interested in staying in Toodyay after getting training.

This might be possible due to the huge employment opportunities that will be created if the mining industry is allowed to proceed in our shire.

For those in town who are concerned about the Echidna or Forest Red Tailed Black Cockatoo in Julimar, well I am too.

Only for the reasons that an ever-increasing amount of wildlife is being hit by vehicles speeding out of the shire while being driven to work, or tourists coming up for the day to visit.

The wildlife death toll on the side of or in the middle of Julimar Road heading towards Chittering is extensive.

It includes not only the recently publicised Chuditch but possums, carpet snakes, kangaroos, wallabies, emus, echidnas, Blue Tongued Lizards, magpies, racehorse goannas and, unfortunately, slow-rising Carnaby Cockatoos.

Some in our community are worried about the number of creatures that will leave the area if Chalice gets the chance to mine.

I believe they are taking for granted the number of wild creatures being killed on Julimar Road right now.

Toodyay has a history of small groups of people opposing anything new that might change the atmosphere of our ‘quiet little town’.

After the damage has been done – such as the loss of the Deep Space Ground Station “The Dish” to New Norcia (to become a major attraction), the possibility of new abattoirs and the town by-pass fiasco – these people often then leave town.

Please let us hope that a vocal minority does not ruin another opportunity to provide employment to the town and funding for our local community groups.

Our property would have gone up in flames had it not been for a lucky change in wind direction when Toodyay’s 2009 bushfire burnt through Julimar Forest along the back of our farm.

The forest took the brunt of the fire and some areas burnt so hot that it was like a moonscape – just white ash and nothing left.

Wildlife, if not able to escape the flames, was never seen again.

But the forest regenerated over time and still stands today, still growing, and will still be here after your families and mine – and an eco-friendly mining company such as Chalice – have long left the ground.

Viral loads linger in the air and can be insidious.

People who have COVID-19 and don’t know it – as is often the case initially – are often infectious before they show symptoms.

If you wear a mask and are breathing out large amounts of virus, most of it – though, of course, not all – gets trapped in your mask.

Infected people who don’t wear masks are continually breathing out lots of COVID-19 into the air around them.

The more COVID-19 you breathe into the air, the greater the risk that others around you will be infected.

However, the risk of infection reduces for others with masks, and the risk is reduced several fold if both people are masked.

This focus on ‘self’ above community would make sense if those who were behaving that way were all at severe risk of personal harm from public health measures.

This may be the case for a very small number but for most of us, wearing a mask is a discomfort and an irritation and no more.

I have Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), am claustrophobic and find wearing a mask very unpleasant – it makes me cough, I find it difficult to breathe properly and I feel ‘smothered’.

But I prefer to be able to sleep at night with a clear conscience that I have done my best to minimise the risk to others if I should unbeknownst have COVID-19.

A few further thoughts to consider.

About 30 per cent of people have one or more chronic conditions of which they may or may not be aware, that increases their risk of serious illness or death from COVID-19.

About 10 to 30 per cent of people who get COVID-19 will suffer long-term health problems regardless of whether their infection was mild or severe.

The least vaccinated in our community are the very young – they have no say, so it is surely up to us to try and keep them as safe as possible from long-term health problems.

It is all very well to say ‘the vulnerable should stay at home’ but what about those who are not vulnerable themselves but have family members at home who may be?

But why does The Herald consistently mention the ‘vulnerable’ Black Cockatoo and Chuditch which it calls ‘threatened’ and omit mentioning the ‘critically endangered’ Woylie?

Short of calling The Herald specieist, in the sense of preferring one species over another, we look forward to the Woylie taking its precarious place in the hierarchy of endangered fauna in the Julimar Conservation Park.

The contract was not advertised for public tender because the Shire used the WA Local Government (WALGA) preferred supplier scheme to select New Zealand company Datacom for the job.

The Shire paid WALGA $10,127 for the privilege of becoming the guinea pig for new software that was untested in WA.

Since 2019 the shire has paid Datacom a monthly licence fee of $3300 but from day one it has not performed to requirements.

The Shire says Datacom is not charging to fix the problem but public accounts show that, to date, it has paid Datacom a staggering total of $399,180.61 since 2019.

Add to this the huge number of wasted staff hours working with Datacom to fix the problem and the extra cost of Shire staff having to produce financial reports manually for council meetings and the figure must increase substantially.

The Shire says Datacom aims to have its software producing financial reports by the end of this month; three years after its introduction.

I am not holding my breath.

While all this has been going on, the Shire paid another IT company – Professional PC Support – a total of $369,530.70 to manage its overall IT systems.

As a matter of interest, during this time the Shire also paid WALGA a total $124,159.14 for its preferred supplier scheme, membership, training and other questionable services.

Last year’s WALGA financial report shows it ‘earned’ nearly $5 million ($4,928,305) from its preferred supplier scheme alone.

Maybe our councillors should demand that WALGA refunds the $10,127.80 we paid it for recommending Datacom as a reliable supplier.

At least this would help to offset the many extra staff hours wasted on this debacle.

However, in the final analysis, our councillors are accountable for all Shire spending and one has to wonder how they have watched a total of $770,000 spent on IT over the past three years without demanding that the CEO stem the flow until we have an accounting package that conforms to local government financial reporting standards.

The article also mentions that “two public appeals against a state government decision to allow off-road drilling in the forest”.

This is also incorrect.

There are five appeals, currently before the Appeals Convenor, which seek to stop Chalice’s application for a Native Vegetation Clearing Permit.

If you are concerned about the environment and the threat to ‘critically endangered’, ‘endangered’ and ‘vulnerable’ species it’s time to do something about it.

We all know that once it’s gone, it’s gone forever.

Surely this community and the residents of this state should benefit and share in the valuable minerals that belong to our precious land rather than having them shipped out making the rich richer and not benefiting the average person in any way.

It would be a different matter if we were mining it ourselves in order to reduce our own state’s dependence on fossil fuels and could have some say in doing it in an environmentally sensitive and sustainable way.

If we can’t stop them mining, then I hope we will all rally and our council will support us in insisting that the excavated minerals will be transported by train or at least on an alternative route to Perth and certainly not through our quiet little tourist town.

Many residents like ourselves chose to come and live in this peaceful, creative community away from the traffic, noise and chaos of the city.

I’m sure there must be others who feel as we do that having 10 trucks an hour driving past every day as was suggested in an earlier article on this matter would be unbearable.

In fact, it would change the whole atmosphere of the town and reduce the value of properties along the main truck route as many people would sadly choose to leave and a lot fewer tourists would choose to visit.

With sincere concern.