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continued from page 11 unnecessary. Former Ballina MP Don Page must shoulder the majority of responsibility for this terrible planning outcome that will irrevocably damage our heritage, our community and the functionality of our market ground and tear a huge hole in protected critical wetland habitat. Don Page arranged the funding for the bypass project on the basis that Butler Street was the preferred outcome and campaigned in favour of retention of the rail corridor for the exclusive use of the rail trail. Byron Shire Council followed this agenda to the tee and managed to contrive an EIS to suit this predetermined outcome. As a result the proven best bypass option parallel to the railway lines on dedicated infrastructurezoned land with a cheaper build and fewer environmental impacts has been lost. To deliver this outcome Council stopped at nothing. Old political ties and the local council business machine ensured the outcome, clearing the way for a rail-trail takeover of the rail corridor, including its lucrative management contract, development rights and massive funding budget. This is an
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unfortunate reality, particularly when our group made numerous attempts to engage with the rail-trail proponents, seeking a win-win outcome incorporating bypass, rail trail, future rail and transit station on the rail corridor in Byron Bay. We are deeply unhappy with this outcome but we have been fighting the good fight. If you really love your place you have an obligation to fight for it. There is a lot to love about Byron Bay but there remain many who will just as soon destroy the place and its values for a whole different agenda. Paul Jones President, Butler Street Community Network
September is coming
Woe! Damnation! Or at least the stench of what might be corruption. We are indeed subsumed by dirty politics, and only voting gives us a chance to climb out of the hole. Do it before there’s another coup by another NSW premier to shut down democracy. The bypass decision looks anything but independent. It looks political, stagemanaged and filthy. And is our council smelling like roses, or Rose? Check Annie Rademacher’s letter of last week, which points out the farcical claims in a DA for Brunswick Heads, a familiar pattern. Check Michael Balson’s letter, which skewers the
paid-parking fiasco, but he could have thrown in the weird flasher toilets, the absurd bypass, or any number of other nasties across the Shire. Things are profoundly wrong. You know it, I know it. So what do we do? We’ve had fiasco, farce, and filth, and the only people who can do something about it is us. We can talk to our neighbours, we can write/talk to the press, we can share information on social media, and we can vote. September is coming. You have the power. Use it, or we’ll lose it. Matt Hartley Byron Bay
Save the hospital
There’s an air of doom surrounding the security-fencedoff proud community asset of Mullum hospital which suddenly reached its ‘use-by date’ when the new Byron hospital opened. The private security guard employed 24/7 at the cost of the good old taxpayer gives you a suspicious look when you roll up to peer in through the wire at the noble brick-red matriarch. One can sense the wrecker’s ball just waiting to lay ruin to that magnificent old building which should be heritage listed rather than turned into dust and rubble. The sale of the prime real estate, a private donation by a generous local family last century, to go back into the state coffers. On the furphy that the building is riddled with asbestos. It’s not. Wouldn’t it be great if Sol
Ibrahim, Diane Woods, Rose and the other two councillors could switch their determination to rush through a rock wall against the tide of nature into saving the hospital and turning it into retirement units (desperately needed for our ageing population), a birthing unit for local mums, a detox centre for the countless youth in our community who are in the vicious grip of Ice and other addictive drugs, and a world’s best research centre for the emerging and obvious link between drug addiction and mental illness? Our youth are bleeding and dying in our midst in turning to drugs, rejecting the main paradigm that is on offer: ‘Get a job, get a mortgage, work your butt off for 40 years to pay it off. Consume. Then die. Thank you. Next!’ So Sol, how about stepping up to the plate and showing us the real man that you are? Put your oratory and bush lawyer skills to good use. Diane, Rose, in the dying gasps of this council, leave a genuine legacy behind you to be proud of: work to save the hospital for the people. David Bradbury Wilsons Creek
A subtle message?
Around election time I have noticed an increase in the number of Australian flags flying from private properties. For some time I have been trying to decipher the message being communicated. continued on page 14
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12 July 6, 2016 The Byron Shire Echo
Byron Shire Echo archives: www.echo.net.au/byron-echo