To stop the rot, residents must fight their own council
Apart from the departure of Mr Persson, there are other upsides for the community in its attempts to stop the sale of valuable community space.
With no elected councillors standing between the community and our council, we can now find out who are these faceless Council staff that "recommended that our community land and assets be sold".
Fortunately the NSW Government has announced a public inquiry into this fiasco which will "provide an independent, open and transparent process" where the first business should be requiring these faceless staffers, the community's employees, to explain their decision to sell our few remaining open space and local parks.
We should reject any notion that Council staff prepare a "master plan.... before it sells of any assets."
It must be realised that the selling of public assets is a non starter.
If council staff can't come up with more creative ideas than this, they should do the right and noble thing and resign.
Recent "progress" in my neighborhood highlights the disaster that this council now is.
This week critical habit for native flora and fauna has been compromised by the removal of healthy paperbark trees (melaleuca quinquenervia) at the rear boundary of a development with a creek reserve.
One creek to the east, a complete demolition of an old home and every tree on the block has left highly erodible sand plain sand pushed within a meter of the creek with not even a token sediment fence, as is required by state legislation.
When I moved to the Central Coast some 30-odd years ago, every council envelope had a silhouette of a tree and stated that Gosford was a tree-friendly council.
We needed council approval to remove or trim these leafy assets.
Now developers know they can do whatever they like, and Council will do nothing.
If residents want to stop the rot then they have to be prepared to fight their own council and travel to Wyong to do it.
What a sad state of affairs.
SOURCE:
Email, 13 May 2021
Bryan Ellis, Umina Beach