Homegrown Christmas Shopping
THE BYRON SHIRE Volume 25 #27 Tuesday, December 7, 2010 Mullumbimby 02 6684 1777 Byron Bay 02 6685 5222 Fax 02 6684 1719 editor@echo.net.au adcopy@echo.net.au www.echo.net.au 21,000 copies every week
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L O C A L I D E O L O G I C A L A P PA R AT U S
Shearwater ends in court Uncertainty over whether the school’s insurers will cover the case means committee members, including teachers and parents, may be personally liable for up to half a million dollars, including legal costs. Ray Moynihan In late 2008 the builder signed a contract for almost $2 million to build Fallout from the financial crisis at the classrooms with then administraShearwater Steiner school earlier this tor Stan Stevens, one of the school’s year has reached the courts, with legal founders. action by a builder who says he’s owed $410,000 in debts and lost profits. The plight of the fast-growing Mul- Voluntary administration lumbimby school has attracted nationIn 2009 the school failed to make al attention, after it spectacularly sur- payments due under the contract, vived very public financial problems, and Mr Ware ultimately became one sparking much community interest of those who lost their money after and division over what went wrong. Shearwater went into voluntary adTuncurry-based builder Mark ministration in 2010. Ware has now filed claims in the dis‘I will pursue them for this debt trict court against seven members of – till I die if necessary – until justice the committee which formerly helped is done,’ says the builder, who alleges run the school, arguing they should ‘Stan Stevens should have known the have known Shearwater would be un- school didn’t have enough money.’ able to pay him. Mr Stevens and the others being
Teachers and parents may be personally liable for half a million dollars
sued are strongly defending the case, denying they knew – or should have been expected to know – that the school wouldn’t be able to pay the builder, and that they had only limited control over the school’s budget. The lawyer representing four of the Shearwater seven, Mr Wroth Wall, says if the case is successful it will have dramatic national consequences, potentially causing people to shy away from representing community-based groups. ‘The implication is the complete collapse of voluntary involvement in non-profit associations,’ said Mr Wall, As if the Woolies fencing isn’t intrusive enough. Jill Moonie took this photo a member of the school’s new board. of a conga line of trucks in Stuart Street, Mullumbimby at 1.30pm last Friday. Significantly, the three teachers being sued by the builder have chosen to be represented separately from the Stan Stevens group, by a different lawyer, and their defence strategy may also differ if the matter gets to open court in the new year. continued on page 2
Woolworths drives Mullum to gridlock David Lovejoy
A decade of Screenworks
Screenworks celebrated its tenth anniversary last Wednesday. Many past and present board members attended as well as many of the area’s screen industry practitioners. John Weiley, Cathy Henkel and Lois Randall each told a personal story about getting Screenworks established. Photo Jeff ‘Screened and just working’ Dawson.
Byron Shire Council picked up the mood of the community last week and voted that Woolworths remove the barricades hindering the businesses and streets of Mullumbimby, at least for Christmas. Cr Basil Cameron, who proposed the motion, described the building works as an imposition which was gridlocking the town’s traffic and which would deteriorate further when holiday season visitors arrive. ‘It’s not fair on our residents and it’s not fair on our businesses having to wear the costs of [Woolworths’] overruns,’ he said. ‘It’s our community that ultimately pays for these.’ Mayor Jan Barham said it was unprecedented for a town to suffer restriction of access to its own public spaces, and planning director Ray Darney agreed. In the public access session preceding the Council meeting on Thursday, Deborah Lilly of Mullumbimby Community Action Network said the work has taken nine months already,
instead of the promised three months. She claimed Woolworths had been given ‘carte blanche over our streets.’ The construction of the Woolworths outlet has been delayed due to rain, but locals say the fenced off Station Street has been used as a storage dump for the project and that tenants of the Council-owned block next to the building site have been denied access. The prolonged building work has also impacted severely on the Poinciana Café.
Request to Woolworths to open streets for Christmas Council’s general manager is to request Woolworths to desist for the holiday break and to negotiate a commercial level of compensation for the former Telstra site which the barricades have closed off. Meanwhile the project manager of Walton Construction (Qld) Pty Ltd, Andrew Corbin, has written to Station Street residents promising that the street will open for Christmas and close again for more work in early January.
ABN 82 087 650 682
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