In a controversial move making national news, Wagga City Council declared a state of climate emergency for the city.
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Councillor Vanessa Keenan brought the motion to council prompting a debate beyond the meeting room walls.
Fellow Councillor Dan Hayes said at the time that the opposition sparked from assumptions made about the council choosing one issue ahead of other concerns.
"The argument being made is that we have to choose between this and the lake, crime, homelessness - that we have to deal with this first and then the others," he said.
The state of climate emergency saw support from a slight majority of councillors, including the city's mayor, before backflipping after a deal-breaking vote from Councillor Rod Kendall.
The initial movement of the city declaring a state of climate emergency has continued to have a lasting impression on not just the region but the state.
A similar motion was brought to light at a local government conference in October where a call for the state to declare its own climate emergency was put to vote.
The wrath of bad weather hit the region hard this month as one of the big drivers behind Wagga's climate emergency.
After many feeling the effects for months already, the Bureau of Meteorology officially declared the drought across the Murray-Darling Basin as the worst on record.
Months on, the region continues to suffer with no relief to dry lands.
As recent as November, farmers were forced to turn crops into hay, sell livestock or even leave their farms altogether.
With no end in sight, the federal government announced a Future Drought Fund in November as an attempt to lighten the load on farmers.
In a different type of trauma, the Riverina entered the second half of the year in mourning after Deniliquin man Josh Leetham died in a head-on collision with a truck near Hay.
A father of three young children and husband to Madi, the 27-year-old was remembered as a devoted family man and hard worker.
The incident on June 28 saw the region prove what it means to be a community with thousands coming together to donate more than $100,000 in a matter of days, helping the family with funeral and living costs.
In other news, a callous act of vandalism shocked the Gundagai community as a Wagga man was found responsible for damaging the famous Dog on the Tuckerbox statue.
Damage was sustained to the ear and nose of the dog, with Riverina MP and Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack condemning the act as "Absolutely disgraceful".
However, spirits were soon lifted with the replacement of the statue the following month.
In good news, Wagga's pinnacle education facility Charles Sturt University celebrated three decades of knowledge, learning and growth.
The university was formed after the Mitchell College of Advanced Education and the Riverina-Murray Institute of Higher Education merged, becoming one of three foundation campuses of CSU.
On July 11, Wagga's iconic Knights Meats and Deli announced its permanent closure after 45 years of serving the community.
The business planned to hang up their aprons up for the last time on July 20 due to tough economic conditions, the removal of a key customer parking area and rising electricity costs.
However the first announcement of closure proved to be the first of a number of back flips on the original plan.
Three days before scheduled closure, the business announced via Facebook that they were extending trading until July 31.
The extension was said to be a bid to secure a potential buyer who, according to the social media statement, were "Very seriously interested in taking the business into the future".
The potential buyer did not pull through, forcing the business to decide in August that Knights Meats and Deli would scale down and close its butchery and grocery sections, with only the deli remaining.
The final day of trading for the existing company was August 15, with the following day marking the start of the new business, Knights Deli.
July paved the way for a big news month in August, holding a heavy health focus as the debate around abortion laws came to a head and hospital workers fought for their safety.