Council right to care for safety

LOUISE Bloomfield tells us she was a candidate in the last Hobart City Council elections (Talking Point, July 27). Clearly the electors were not that impressed with her campaign, as she got less than two per cent of the primary vote. Perhaps she should have read the Local Government Act before castigating council for not concentrating on “roads, rates and rubbish”.

Section 20 of the Local Government Act sets out the functions and powers of councils. These include (1 a) “to provide for the health, safety and welfare of the community”. I suggest that includes pill testing at community events and climate change issues. While elected members clearly have a responsibility for overseeing “rates, roads and rubbish”, councils employ highly qualified experts whose training gives them the expertise to advise their council in these areas.

Ms Bloomfield’s claim that it can take over half an hour to travel from North Hobart to Salamanca in the evening rush hour clearly relates to exceptional circumstances — last Friday I left home in Austins Ferry at 4.45pm and arrived at the Fern Tree Tavern in not much more than half an hour. She also takes an undeserved potshot at Andrew Wilkie MP, accusing him of hijacking the council by aspiring to state and federal government positions. If I recall correctly, Andrew Wilkie has never been a member of the HCC. Bob Holderness-Roddam Austins Ferry

Critique spot on

LOUISE Bloomfield’s article in Talking Point is a cracker of an assessment of the dysfunctional behaviour of some of our elected representatives on the Hobart City Council. Every paragraph of her critique is spot on and highlights the misguided direction of those councillors intent on pursuing agendas entirely outside their responsibilities, but nevertheless are probably a prelude to a State or Federal political career. She mentions Sue Hickey and Andrew Wilkie. We are all aware of Ms Hickey’s modus operandi and of course Mr Wilkie persists in engaging in local and State government affairs simply because he has no clout federally. Then there is the development at all costs faction.

Local Government is about rates, roads and rubbish and any sensible ratepayer does not want to pay for irrelevant and ludicrous thought bubbles about which councillors have no real influence or control. Ms Bloomfield is right to suggest the general manager should step in to ensure that the council deals only with matters appropriate to the running of the city of Hobart. I hope she stands again and may I say, if you have not read her treatise on these matters, please read her article in Saturday’s Mercury. It’s a good read! Michael Hobden Sandy Bay

We can do better

CONTRARY to “develop at any cost” Councillor Simon Behrakis ( Mercury, July 29), I think our planning scheme needs to be strengthened. Planning schemes should consider not only economic benefits of development but also make sure new buildings enhance our living environment. Our colonial built heritage also has an economic and social benefit and should be protected. We see the result of failure of the planning system in really standout inappropriate buildings like Empress Towers, 10 Murray St (demolished) and the Marine Board building with its awful wind turbines. We need to do much better at rejecting bad development, both large and small, and encouraging developers to propose well designed appropriately sized buildings. We the people have to live in this environment and we have a right to stop purely profit driven developments making a mess of our city and suburbs. Peter Turner Sandy Bay

Pill question

NOTING that the HCC has declared being in favour of pill-testing does that mean I have to bring my Webster pack along to events such as The Taste and the Wooden Boat Festival? Jack Bell Howrah

Shopping lament

WOE is Me, My Life is soon to be a Misery, No Haberdashery nor Hardware Store, In Hobart Town Forever More. Dr Ian Broinowski Battery Point

Learn from Vancouver

HAVING recently returned from a month holiday in Canada, I noticed that their second largest city, Vancouver still has the old analog coin operated parking meters, similar to the ones the Hobart City Council saw an urgency to replace with over complicated and expensive digital versions. Obviously Vancouver has more pressing priorities to spend their ratepayers money on. Perhaps the HCC and Tasmania need to look at how other countries prioritise public spending. We could learn quite a lot. Paul Merhulik Blackmans Bay