COUNCILLORS NEED TO WAKE UP TO THEMSELVES

 

With this State Government election we need to be supporting candidates who have the bottle to fundamentally reform local governance. With 35 'representatives' in the lower house there is the scope.

Local Govt. is broken and the case for it being fundamentally rationalised is very strong looking at the waste and management's apparent ineptitude that is costing rate payers and tax payer far too much. Much of executive management lack the skills education and experience to deliver in accord with their gross salaries.

It is said that start by doing what’s necessary, then what’s possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible. However a start needs to be made on what is necessary and sooner rather than later thank you very much!

A LITTLE BIT OF IGNORED HISTORY AT YORK PARK

 

A Launcestonian with a memory alerts the  Concerned Launcestonian Network  of another little bit of fine print that is being conveniently suppressed by Town Hall management.

The land title for York Park includes the area of land known as Elizabeth Gardens. These gardens also include a memorial to workers who died at work, and never to return home.

So, it apparently turns out that a piece of land that was gifted by the then Queen – therefore the name – to the Public of Launceston in perpetuity. Far from being mindful of any of this management has, and is now, proposing to regifted it to a State Govt authority with apparently no accountability to the previously gifted public.

And, as it is turning out, the State Govt authority could well 'flog off' this little land to a 'developer' for say a car sales yard, a pub cum bottle shop, or goodness knows what. 

Sadly, the 'manager/s' proposing this might well be called a 'blowin' of the kind that appear from elsewhere and disappear to elsewhere carrying away gleaned wealth to be spent elsewhere to add insult to injury.

To top it off, this class of blowin seduces elected representatives that their 'economic rationalism' cuts the mustard. That can only be so for uncritical thinkers without a moral compass. They know the price of many things but sadly not the 'value' of anything.

Being a successful politician is not anything to do making profits. it's actually about making a positive impact on people's lives and delivering dividends – social and cultural dividends.

YORK PARK: BE ALERT, BE ALRMED, BE VERY VERY ALARMED

The ink has dried on an agreement the City of Launceston and the state government say means the North is "no worse off" when York Park, currently branded as UTAS Stadium, is signed over to Stadiums Tasmania.

A draft memorandum of understanding (MoU) was endorsed by councillors late 2023 and officially signed by Launceston mayor Matthew Garwood and Minister for Stadia and Events Nic Street on February 4.


The non-legally binding document detailed the number of AFL and AFLW games the council expected to take place at the venue the new peak body takes ownership of the stadium.

Cr Garwood said although Stadiums Tasmania was required by legislation to host sport and other events at the stadium, the MoU showed the government and council meant business.

"The Stadiums Tasmania Act 2022 specifies that Stadiums Tasmania must continue to attract and deliver international and national sporting, entertainment and events content," he said.

"We're hopeful this MoU will give additional assurance to our community that the council and state government are committed to growing content at UTAS Stadium under a new management model, long into the future."

Minister for Stadia and Events Nic Street said the council and government worked closely on the agreement, and it would ensure the stadium would remain "the premier venue in the North".

"One of the things that the council wanted to lock in was content," Mr Street said.

"We were as keen as they were on locking in content for the North of the state.

"We were more than comfortable to develop this MoU to make sure that there was an understanding about a minimum level of content for UTAS Stadium going forward, which we were really keen to sign because we want to demonstrate our commitment to supporting the North."


Mr Street said the AFL - which has the final say on the number of games UTAS Stadium - was "well aware" of the discussions between the council and the state government about the MoU.

The mayor said the commitment by the state government, and the future transfer of the stadium to Stadiums Tasmania, would lead to a better outcome for Launceston ratepayers.

Cr Garwood said Launceston would still reap the economic rewards of high-profile events, but the costs of managing the stadium would be borne by all those who used it and just Launceston residents.

"It's going to remain a community asset," he said.

"The $30 million that's injected to the local economy is still going to inject directly into the local economy.

"Along Invermay Road, for example, the Bizy Bee and those businesses are still going to reap the benefits that are associated with events at the stadium.

"If anything that's going to increase as Stadiums Tasmania will be able to make deals and use the relationships they're able to build through their specific skill sets that we just haven't accessed at a local level at the moment."

END

COMMENT: Here we go again the tail is wagging the dog and all the signs indicate that it is meant to be confusing. Indeed, there is ever indication that what is going on away from the public gase is a Machiavellian stunt albeit involving players who do not really understand how they are being manipulated

Machiavellianism is sneaky, cunning, and lacking in any kind of moral code. In the 1500s the Italian philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli, wrote the political treatise that encourages “the end justifies the means” behavior, especially among politicians.

Here the end game is trick Launcestonians into divesting themselves, by remote control, of all they invested in York Park – that is financially, socially and culturally. Who wind what? That is open to speculation but as surely as GOD made little apples there is no doubt about who loses!

This initiative to GIFT York Park to a self-accountable statutory authority in every sense of the word, it is alarming. Now with Council considering an 'management driven, strategic intitiative that too is alarming. Moreover, that this MOU is being sighed well away from the 'public gaze' that too smacks of the cunning that Machiavellianism perpetrates.

In Launceston there is a cohort of 'representatives' who seem to be happy enough with a quiet life and their stipend – relatively generous as they are. It is alarming that that this 'gifting initiative' has got this far without a meaningful consultation process and that the city's NEW COUNCILLORS have been by-and-large blind sided.

What is so very concerning is that it appears as if Council's Management has in this case and other blended and blanded their role with 'governance's' role.

Currently it noticeable with too few exceptions, that deloved decision making turns out to be a bungle. Everywhere, if you look, one can see incompetence rampant, and incompetence triumphant. Sadly, one has to accepted the universality of incompetence.

It is also concerning that while staff increases and shuffles may produce a temporary improvement, in the end, the promotion process eventually produces its effect on the newcomers and they too, rise to their levels of incompetence and become oblivious to their failings.

Sadly, the appeal processes are, by design, financially debilitating with lawyers picnicking at the expense of people trying to protect their interests and as the saying goes... "laughing all the way to the bank"!

PLEASE CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO ENLARGE

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A NEW BRIDGE OVER THE kanamalukaTAMAR OR NOT!?

 

IN THE EXAMINER ... Tasmanian Labor said an update on the planned Tamar River Bridge was "long overdue."

The project was first floated by the state government in 2018.

Last year Infrastructure Minister Michael Ferguson announced a business case for the bridge was nearing completion, despite it being promised in early 2023.

The case is essential for the request of $320 million from the federal government for the $400 million project.

Tasmanian Labor leader Rebecca White called on Mr Ferguson to deliver an update.

"The Liberals have been talking about this project for five years now," Ms White said.

"But we've seen very little in terms of progress from a government that's far better at kicking the can down the road than getting things done."

Mr Ferguson said the government had committed $80 million towards the construction of a second Tamar River crossing between the West Tamar Highway and the East Tamar Highway north of University Way in Newnham.

"We expect the final business case to be provided to the commonwealth government in coming weeks," Mr Ferguson said.

"I am excited to share our advanced plans with for the community at the same time."

END

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKEtoTKULyk

The big question here on what advice was this $80MILLION commitment made and under what circumstance. As is often said in politics, this is all about "blowing smoke" in the expectation that it will save a a drowning politician. That it might be said now, well it is probably on the money!

WATCH THIS SPACE!

PLANNING, MEDIATION AND BUREAUCRATIC LOCAL GOVERNANCE'S WASTEFULNESS

 

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS AN EARLIER POST

OPINION: In releasing this information there is a hint of Council’s Manager of Development- MoD- (Ex-Planning Officer) subliminally defending the status quo. If that is to do with defending a livelihood rather than conceding that there are other ways to achieve better decision making that needs to be called out that is concerning.

Albeit possibly in an unguarded moment, the MoD once asserted that ‘cultural landscaping’ was not something governance (AKA Planning Authorities) rather it happens all by itself. Possibly cultural landscapes are GOD’S WORK and if this figured in the rationale it’s a concept that should be tested at a conference of professional ‘placemakers’ to test its veracity.

In Launceston as elsewhere every ‘development’ seeking Planning Authority endorsement is primarily to do with placemaking and cultural landscaping. At its best ‘placedness’, cultural sensibilities, community aspirations and social issues come into play. Autocratic bureaucratic assertions of RULE X sub-clause Y are essentially oblivious to this.

Sadly, we live in the Managerial Age, in a world where administrative imperatives prevail. The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens celebrated in his novels. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps because in those places we see the outcome of unfettered autocracy.

The ‘evil’ is conceived and ordered – moved, seconded, carried, and minuted – around tables in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted meeting places and conceived in the offices that facilitate and drive the decision making. The ‘evil’ is perpetrated by quiet men who wear suits and ties, who cut their fingernails and generally have shaven faces and do not actually need to raise their voices. Naturally enough, the symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern. Think 1984!

It turns out that there is a fiery gateway to hell on earth, an abyss, and what’s more it was created by careless governance and continues due to bureaucratic ineptitude … See https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-gates-of-hell-turkmenistan

It also turns out, and sadly so, that government is three fourths parasitic with the other fourth being to do with stupidity and fumbling around in dark places. Cultural landscaping should/could be about creating power and private resources for all in society by destroying bureaucratic and monopolistic control of a community.

That the possibility of mediation does not appear to be a possibility under the managerial status quo where it seems corporate developers are given free kicks whenever they ask for one. Good transparent accountable planning NIL …Investment driven development 4!