Letters
M DRAUGHTSMANK BUILDING DESIGN HOUSE PLANS RENOVATIONS EXTENSIONS
SOIL TESTS & ENGINEER’S DETAILS ALL TO COUNCIL SPECIFICATIONS
ichael elly PH 6680 1319
Fresh news every day!
netdaily www.echonetdaily.net.au Sunday 1pm – 6pm LIVE MUSIC
Supporting Local Musicians Tapas Style Grazing $8–$15
139 Newes Road, Coorabell | 6684 7348
Top quality secondhand goods, furniture and electrical. Large selection of books at CHEAP prices. /P 3HOP #NR 4WEED 3T "OOYUN 3T "RUNSWICK (EADS (next to supermarket) Mon-Fri 10am-5pm WWW CAWI ORG AU s CAWIOPSHOP GMAIL COM s
Election fever: 18 sleeps and plenty In Byron Shire there will be two local government elections on September 8: one for eight councillors and a separate election for a ninth councillor, called mayor. Spreading our vote over eight positions allows for roughly proportional representation – candidates need about one-eighth of the vote to get elected. It’s quite democratic. For mayor it’s a presidentialstyle ‘winner takes all’ election. The mayoral result affects the councillor one. If the elected mayor is also standing on a councillor ticket, they are removed from it and votes for them pass down to their number two candidate. Four of the mayoral candidates are also top candidate on a councillor ticket for September 8. Hence, for example, if we elect Woods for mayor, we’ll likely see Cubis on council and possibly Hunter. If we elect Cameron, we’ll get Hart and maybe Arrowsmith. I hope we elect Richardson for mayor. This will likely put Rose Wanchap on council and maybe me as well (number 3 on the Greens ticket). Vote Green in both elections, please. Duncan Dey Greens candidate
Q
Q Having
councillors who are affiliated with the political parties represented in state and federal parliaments can be both an advantage and disadvantage. Party loyalty can often open doors to the centre of political power, provide access to MPs, ministers and patronage networks. On the minus side, it can tie a local councillor to policies, ideology and factional
VOTE FOR SOL
AND VISION IN ACTION
politics that are detrimental to the community they ostensibly serve. Byron Shire needs mature and level-headed leadership, someone who can repair the poor relations between councillors and staff through mutual respect and trust. We need a mayor who is 100 per cent prepared to put this council’s core services back on track, restore confidence in community engagement processes, ensure transparency, integrity and efficiency in council planning and tendering procedures, and build strong stakeholder partnerships to deliver priority policies. All this needs to be achieved without the distraction of the notoriously factionalised politics of the NSW Greens. Can Simon Richardson put his hand on his heart and promise this? Maggie Brown South Golden Beach
communities. Our sustainable future depends on strengthening the community with services, a strong local economy and solid representation. A critical area of council policy where great care is needed to ensure that community strength is not diminished is in land use planning. For example, to support local food production, we must ensure that sufficient land is zoned for agricultural production, especially for smaller-scale producers and those on smaller lots, as they supply much of the fresh food available at local farmers markets. The Draft Local Environment Plan (DLEP) proposes a major update on land-use planning for the Shire. It includes significant measures to protect biodiversity. One that I initiated provides for greater protection of watercourses and riparian zones. It also includes elements of the Biodiversity Conservation Strategy. Under the plan significant areas of rural land that are currently zoned for agricultural production will be rezoned for environmental protection as E2 or E3 zones. No agricultural production can occur in E2 and it is limited in E3. I have advocated for better mapping to reassess proposed E zones, greater use of E3 and allowing a greater range of small-scale agricultural uses in E3, and will continue to do so. Taken together these measures would substantially implement the Biodiversity Conservation Strategy, but in a way that helps to ensure our sustainable future. Cr Basil Cameron Our Sustainable Future
ture because of it being ‘registered’. The reality is that ‘micro’ parties, such as OSF, are little more than locally based community groups registered (unlike the big boys) under the Local Government Act. They exist for the sole purpose of furthering the interests of the local community in a particular local-government area. They have no head office or separate agendas back in Sydney or Canberra. Our Sustainable Future does have a carefully crafted policy platform and set of values that our members, candidates and councillors are required to uphold – see www.osf.org.au. Nice try, Tom. Hugh Ermacora Byron Bay Q On September 8 two options are
open to electors of Byron Shire. One is to give either of the two extremes – inappropriate development or the status quo – a strong Q Bed taxes and parking fees majority; in which case a signifialone will not meet the needs of cant minority of our fellow citizens a council hamstrung by shortfalls (and councillors) is likely to have on government funding for inanother four dissatisfied and disfrastructure. Residents and local affected years. The other, preferbusinesses alike are being comproable, option is to acknowledge that mised in their daily activities, even council must determine future dithough they dutifully, in most rections and make decisions in the cases, pay their rates and levies to interest of the whole constituency, council. The shortfall of affordable not merely to push the views of residential accomodation needs to one or other special interest group be addressed. often at the expense of others. We do need tourism for our I am standing with the Our shire to thrive, but we need to Sustainable Future group, and make sure that it benefits the comsupport Basil Cameron for mayor munity. I am sure that many rural of Byron, because its principles as and semi-rural landholders would well as its objectives offer an obviappreciate the chance to house ous solution to the division, facmore people or provide tourist action-fighting and service-delivery commodation and help them stay failures of the last council. on the farm. Tony Hart Paul Arrowsmith Q Tom Tabart (Letters, August 14) Our Sustainable Future Our Sustainable Future tries to discount the external influQ A sustainable future is unques- ence of the major political parties Q The Greens’ principles of grasstionably underpinned by a healthy (yes, including The Greens) on roots democracy, social and ecoenvironment. Protecting our eco- local-government affairs and then, nomic justice, peace and non-viosystems is best achieved by strong tries to smear Our Sustainable Fu- lence and ecological sustainability underpin the decisions our councillors have made to preserve our shire. However, there are ongoing pressures for unwelcome change that will require constant vigilance to manage. The Greens’ commitment to maintaining the social and physical environment will guarantee a council that is thoughtful about the sorts of development that take place, enabling our community saturday august 25 to flourish while preserving the get down to the Rec Ground for a full day of unique qualities of our natural enjunior and senior football including the vironment. I am a Greens candidate for MATCH of the SEASON the upcoming elections because BYRON RAMS -vI want to build on this legacy of LISMORE WORKERS a just and inclusive community. (kick o 3pm) Community is something that all PLUS loads of fun for the kids... of us can be involved in and feel and raes with fantastic prizes! proud about. Our current mayoral AND our HUGE cupcake stall (get baking!) candidate Simon Richardson is a After the big game, join us for an end of season strong leader with integrity and get together at the Park Hotel (see over) commitment to this community. I am proud to be part of his team. So, although our roads maybe less than perfect, at least we care about each other and our social and physical environment, and that’s much more important to me. Clare Hocking Greens candidate
the Vision In Action team for t " WJTJPO GPS UIF GVUVSF PG #ZSPO 4IJSF
t 'BJSOFTT JO [POJOHT JO UIF ESBGU -&1
t 3FTUPSJOH UIF DPNNVOJUZ T USVTU JO JUT DPVODJM
t 3FBM BDUJPO PO USBGGJD DPOHFTUJPO
t *NQSPWJOH DPNNVOJUZ JOGSBTUSBDUVSF
t -FTT UJNF JO DPVSU NPSF UJNF JO DPOTVMUBUJPO
3PBET GPPUQBUIT CFBDI BNFOJUJFT
t 1SPNPUJOH MPDBM GPPE QSPEVDUJPO BOE XBUFS
t 4VQQPSUJOH MPDBM JOJUJBUJWF BOE FOUFSQSJTF
TFDVSJUZ
t #SJOHJOH CBDL CBMBODF UP UIF QMBOOJOH QSPDFTT
t " $PBM 4FBN (BT GSFF TIJSF
SOL IBRAHIM FOR MAYOR
visioninaction.com.au
vision in action for byron shire
facebook.com/visioninactionbyronshire
Authorised by Sol Ibrahim, 33 Armstrong St. Suffolk Park NSW 2481
14 August 21, 2012 The Byron Shire Echo
dogwhistle/bbfc - funday
family fun day
HOTEL
visit byronbayfc.com.au to ďŹ nd out more
<echowebsection=Letters>
Q Now we have Basil from the Faulty Towers of Byron Shire Council, a prospective mayor for the upcoming elections, spruiking his brilliant ideas on ABC radio about a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;bed taxâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; to raise money for this hopeless council, or is this
www.echo.net.au