“Ya Can’t Stop Development,” claimed Bill Heslop when running for local council in the well-known movie “Muriel’s Wedding”. I would say even he would question our Ku-ring-gai Council as events begin to demonstrate just how florid the situation has become.
Fresh from their Hunter Valley exclusive offsite meeting, the councillors returned to the less salubrious Council Chambers.
First up, the children of The Glade Oval at Wahroonga, with their request for lighting on a mere two nights of the week after school will unfortunately have to wait. Apparently, tree canopy needs to provide appropriate screening before a ball is bounced under flood lights.
The good news is most gum trees can grow as tall as 30 metres high, which is the height of the lighting towers. The bad news is 50 percent of their growth is attained within the first 10 years of their life. That’s still 15 metres short, considering the nebulous calls for appropriate screening.
However, a new footpath for local residents – “not for children playing sport” – has been upgraded to urgent. So all in all, a good night out for local residents, perhaps not so much for the kids.
At the end of March, yet another expensive Extraordinary Meeting was suddenly called by five Councillors.
After weeks of hearing from Councillors and Council on how the NSW Government’s “Transport Oriented Program” would plunge the suburbs of Ku-ring-gai into Dante’s third circle of hell, a new paper was produced by council staff called a community and council led response. Within it includes the reshuffling of TOD railway station sites away from Roseville and Killara and focused at Turramurra.
However, the highly detailed report lapsed and was discarded after some councillors claimed they had not reviewed it.
Council staff were not immune either as some could not remember when they commenced writing it, and some could not remember when the extraordinary meeting was called.
Councillors remembered talking about it in “workshops” together with council staff in the Hunter Valley, perhaps over a Pinot Grigio and some foie gras ?
Consequently, whilst other councils fly down the freeway with the NSW Govt., our council now seems to be going around circles in a cul du sac.
Meanwhile, we are all the poorest through ineffective representation.
