The joys of an election campaign

Thinking that my eyes were deceiving me I carefully checked his flyer with my magnifying glass. Try as I might not a Labor logo, no Labor red on said flyer, just independent Get Up orange. Therefore the logical conclusion is that he has cut his affiliation with the Labor Party. It is not surprising that he wishes to distance himself from Labor after the blatant lies spread during the recent Federal election and the behavior of the Labor puppet masters, the unions.

I also noted he cites economic management. A council with a $110 million budget, debt of around $46 million, a deficit of $5.95 million for 2015/2016 and a projected deficit of $9 million is not good economic management.

Being a bit of a hoarder, I came across a flyer of Mr Greenhill’s from a past council election. Blow me down he had promised not to support a rate increase. I guess the 40 per cent council rate rise he championed was a figment of my imagination.

And he needs reminding it was a $1.2 million grant from the NSW Liberal Government that enabled the green bins. 

Oh, the joys of a political campaign!

I have recently announced that I am standing for council in ward 3, where I have deep family connections.

We need to protect our quality of life. I intend to champion the cause of the environment and argue against over-development to preserve our historic townships. I promise to continue the fight against a proposed airport at Badgerys Creek. I will advocate for our natural environment and to protect our World Heritage listing.

The thing is, I am as genuinely independent as you can get. I don’t belong to any political party. I don’t have big donors backing me. I am beholden to no vested interests. I am a nurse, a mother and an activist who cares about the quality of other people’s lives. I will be a loud and independent voice.

Right now my family is all I have. I need the community’s help. If I cannot cover the booths with volunteers on election day, I will not make it. If I cannot cover pre-poll, I will fall short. If you believe in the same things as me, I ask for your help. Please email me on caringforcommunity@gmail.com or call me on 0411 531 103 if you can help me.

Ratepayer satisfaction with the council is not guaranteed (BMG 27.7.16) if you live near the national park entrances in Wentworth Falls. The council's "emergency response" to saturation visitor traffic and parking mayhem often experienced by residents is now apparent for all to see. Rather than suitable traffic and parking restrictions to manage the impact on residents of up to 2.5 million day visitors last year, a plethora of unsightly No Stopping and No Parking signs have been provided by the council at ratepayer expense, to protect the borders of the national park from the visitors’ cars and to push them onto the residents (with one exception) in surrounding streets and lane ways. As a non ratepayer, it is unknown whether park management is satisfied with the council nor why the national park rather than the residents is worthy of such wasteful and unsightly expenditure by council.

I am concerned that the impact of removing a subsidy that used to exist for people who had smaller landfill bins is having an impact.

It used to be the case that those who had smaller landfill bins received a subsidy because of their wonderful contribution to the environment. Now that the size of landfill bins has been standardised, the subsidy has ceased.

My concern is that this needs further investigation. I want to see if there are ways open to us to soften the impact for those who have been doing the right thing for our environment.

I have spoken to other councillors and we have decided to pursue a notice of motion that seeks a report on options to support those impacted. Any possible new measures would not be implemented until after the report comes back.