Some days are diamonds some days are stones…

February 18th, 2010

John Denver comes to mind as I struggle to the end of a very difficult week. Biffed and bashed and very tired with my life as a Councillor right now. Criticised at the Council meeting, at the Burrum Heads Progress Association meeting last night and again I rate a mention (not really a positive mention..)in the Chronicle editorial again today! I don’t expect and never did expect that life as an elected member would be smooth sailing so it is a case of batterning down the hatches and steering as straight a course as I can through bumpy seas and stormy weather and taking the bad with the good.

No excuses however and also an apology on offer for taking so long between posts. I keep saying to myself that I must write more often but (and there always seems to be a but) I just run out of time! The days when I don’t have meetings or functions are devoted to trying to stay on top of correspondence and doing a bit of investigating on how residents queries are going, researching etc… and then my house needs cleaning, the puppies need hugging and brushing and walking and my garden needs weeding and mowing. Graham needs the odd hello also. But (there’s that pesky b word again) I was determined not to whinge so I will simply ask you to have patience and pop me an email if you would like me to address a particular issue via this site.

Now this week in Council we dealt with various issues including forming a committee to manage our Sister City relationships with Crs Hovard and Harris and Kruger nominated. We received responses about petitions and awarded contracts for works including another link of the mobility links corridor which will continue the corridor through to Urraween Rd from McLiver St. Council posts a media release with some further detail about the meeting for those interested on our web site.

In General Business Crs Muckan and Dalgleish announced they have decided to donate their pay rise (or part of it) to charity. I think they were a bit cranky as I had mentioned at a community meeting the manner in which a politician can very cleverly vote against something while all the time knowing that the majority of votes will be in favour (or the opposite). I wondered out loud what the Councillors would do with a pay rise that they obviously didn’t want because they voted against it! I am glad that the Councillors are following through on their committment by donating to deserving charities.

I used General Business  to ask the CEO about how he can address the issues of staff morale and loss of public confidence in Council brought about by recent and persistent negative media coverage. I also included reference to the excellent editorial that Scott Rowe wrote in The Indy last Friday which outlined the danger of Council or Councillors acting in response to the activities of one newspaper editor driving a specific agenda. Lastly I asked the CEO how can Council better respond to requests for information from the media so that we can respond in a prompt and accurate fashion. I don’t enjoy reading that Council either couldn’t be contacted or didn’t return calls. This can also be misleading to readers as sometimes Council has returned calls and provided info within the time frames given but this has not been acknowledged.

So today I find that The Chronicle editor has responded to my brief speech and thinks I’m out of line. My response on reading the editorial was -”Why is it OK for the paper to criticise Council but not OK for Council or myself to criticise the paper?” I am obviously on the losing horse here so to move forward I await tomorrow’s edition as I am sure I will feature predominantly yet again. A resident spoke out on Wednesday at Council in public participation about a Council decision to retain 3 gum trees located on the River Heads public foreshore directly in front of this gentlemans house between his property and the water. I defended the Council position but the resident is very unhappy. Unhappy with me, with Council staff and with the trees! He wants us to remove them.

So I retire tonight wondering what angle the story will take. Council is not perfect. We make mistakes but maybe if people could alert a Councillor to the problems they are having with Council we can assist before the situation develops to a stage where people believe they are being wronged. Some of the issues covered recently within the pages of our paper were news to me! So do give me a yell as soon as any problem with Council develops. The sooner we hear about an issue the sooner we can ask questions and make changes if needed. Staff are tasked primarily to implemt Council ‘rules’. It is us, the elected members, who have the power collectively, to change or adapt rules that are not working properly. The local paper and other media are a necessary and essential tool in our community so I want to use it for good purposes not continually criticise it.

Fingers crossed we can find a middle ground where stories are balanced and accurate and not just a screaming headline. I will also do my best to find the accurate answer to questions posed in the Chronicle pages in relation to Council.

PS. Xavier parking. It seems that the so called ‘car park’ that Council locked is in fact a public park. When I have more detail next week I will let you all know.

PPS You may have missed the addition of a new link on the top of the home page. There is a subscription service available now so each time I write you will receive an email letting you know there is something new here. So if you want an easy way to keep track of my blog activity try it out and let me know what you think. Cheers, Sue

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