Mayor asks questions but ignores answers

As Greg Tuck’s letter (Gaz 18/4) and Vox Pop comments (Trader 20/4) remind us, parking in the Warragul CBD continues to concern citizens. Council’s concern is less certain.

At the Baw Baw Shire Council meeting on April 12, I asked about the results of a question publicly posed by the Mayor: ‘Do you want strict enforcement of time zones to free up parking spaces and will the community accept the fines?’ (‘Around Baw Baw With The Mayor’, Gaz 16/8/16). The relevant parts of my questions and council’s answers were:

1 How many responses were received? ‘During the period of the mayoral column, questions posed by the mayor were not captured formally’.

2 What, broadly, was the balance of opinion expressed? ‘The purpose of the mayoral column was to inform and activate the community ….’. One might think the purpose of inviting answers to a specific question was to inform and activate council.

2 Has any additional compliance monitoring/enforcement been done as a result of comment received ….? ‘The Mayoral column attempted to seek further feedback from the community and parking patrols have not been altered as part of this process’.

Needless to say, I wasn’t encouraged by council’s answers. My own considered response to the mayor’s invitation, emailed to him on August 24 last, wasn’t even acknowledged. Now I know it wasn’t collated or acted on, either.

John Hart, Warragul offs? Pollution?

Why do the burn offs occur when the air is still. Why do the burn offs occur in the best weather and so spoil beautiful Autumns?

Why not burn off a month later when there is more air movement. Why not cancel this process altogether and grade the forest into coops with broad grid like clearings making lots of fire breaks using the green matter for mulch supply and logs as they go. How is your breathing, and what do you think? Ian Honey, Nilma from Casey which I thought was one of the worst local councils.

I'm amazed at how dumb this Baw Baw council is and so wasteful with projects that are ill thought out and with lack of consultation. Such a shame for such a naturally beautiful area

Allan Lowe, Warragul

I recently heard that Hanson Quarries has entered into a sponsorship agreement with the Warragul and District Junior Football League. This is great news as any funding for junior sports development is warmly received, but I was puzzled why a quarry company should want to undertake such an arrangement.

I looked at the WDJFL website to learn more and when the home page came up it was a full page advertisement by Hanson.

I quickly realised that the sponsorship is not just for the benefit of junior football, but it is clearly to gain favour with the general public before a hotly-disputed mega-quarry proposed for Bunyip North is advanced.

Well a message to Hanson, thanks for your sponsorship but our public support cannot be bought in this way.

David Bywater, Garfield North bodies, he now insists that we rely on evidence for guidance.

What does he think all of those experts and organisations have been doing for decades? Gathering and analysing measurements and statistics, then logically reaching conclusions I imagine.

Further, despite the present Federal Government's attempts to reduce the resourcing of organisations such as the CSIRO, why do and should governments fund bodies dedicated to further analysis of the nature and effects of climate change?

Because the evidence is in! We have, thanks to the people Marc dismisses as deluded or ineffectual, the knowledge that we are facing a crisis unlike any we have previously faced in human history, and now must use that knowledge to formulate a response.

As for the suggestion that the Greens, who by the way are not the only people who see dangers in the Adani proposal, are wasting their energies in their 'rear guard action', it is clear that the proposal spells potential harm on a number of fronts. Adani already has a history of disregarding environmental concerns and requirements.

The possibility of irrevocable damage to the already diminished Barrier Reef is stark, as is the threat to the surrounding agricultural industry. And all of this at considerable financial cost to the Australian taxpayer, when the company has already confessed that it could fund the whole operation without our assistance. They are taking us for fools. Let's hope, if the project does go ahead, that our government will make sure this is one multinational that pays its taxes.

Alan Bright, Neerim South