If it looks like a duck and quakes like a duck, then it’s probably a Ku-ring-gai Council housing strategy.
At the recent Extraordinary Council Meeting, the meeting opened with Cr. Martin Smith claiming that 72% of Ku-ring-gai residents do not support the new housing strategy.
However, since only approximately 5,000 surveys were ever received out of the total KRG population of 126,000 – that’s only 4%!
It was then revealed that the five councillors who called for the Extraordinary Meeting (EM), before aborting the entire (GB1) agenda, hadn’t bothered to read the report. Odd, given the wording calling for the EM by the 5 councillors and the opening objectives of the staff report GB1, are almost identical.
At its core was the preferential move of relocating Roseville and Killara railway station Transport-Oriented Development scheme (TOD) to Turramurra and St. Ives, along with 4,500 new residences per site.
It appeared that hard-working council staff and the report were thrown under the bus.
Members of the 5 Councillors lectured the community on why they should call these wasteful meetings; others complained of being called NIMBYS; and others complained about the community sharing their own views, accusing them of sharing false information.
Councillors called an extraordinary meeting at ratepayers’ expense for this. Let’s just ponder that.
The rights to free speech and freedom of expression still exist in this country.
Another gave admission to discussing the contents of GB1 (that no one had now read) with council staff at the Hunter Valley getaway in “workshops.” Woops!
Another Councillor, when discussing the confidential item, stated he hadn’t read the report but knew of its contents, so therefore he knew it was important. Thank goodness that the councillor did not choose surgery as a profession.
Ring the bell!
