Dear Dorothy Dix! I read with interest your recent questions regarding the feather duster and the last Council meeting.
The feather duster has never been one to let the facts influence his pitch!
The silly thing is that all of the councillors have failed to see with this, and other issues, is that there is more than one way to skin a cat sorry, solve a given problem.
The first thing about solving a problem is to state what the problem appears to be, then go about collecting some information then determine what is the Real problem because it’s not always, rarely I’d say, what it’s stated to be. You will appreciate that this is hard for us gung-ho blokes who want to rush in and show how clever we are by coming up with a marvellous idea - sometimes to suit the situation but too often, wide of the mark!
In relation to the rejected 7 Jury recommendations, it’s a matter of analysing what prompted the Jurors to raise these issues – why did they think there was a need for council to spend some money on them (which was their brief, eh?) – that is looking for the cause rather than the effect, finding the real problem not a guess/jump at a possible solution.
For example #1 was asking for council to provide incentives for new business start-ups in the shire. The real problem here is that there aren’t enough employment opportunities to make the local economy viable for a critical mass population, self-sustainable into the future – the solution perhaps is close to the Jury’s idea but is an answer to the question “how can we attract more businesses and even government departments, educational, health, etc. institutions?” A push to jump on Barnaby Joyce’s decentralisation bus for example might have helped allay the need for council to dig into our pockets but such alternate avenues weren’t, it seems, considered hence the need, as I see it, for the recommendations to be further and properly examined.
And like your dog thingo, you have to worry about the strength of the cases being put if nobody has pointed out and argued to council that waiving rates etc., doesn’t cost a cent for green fields developments where nothing was there previously paying rates anyhow!...and who is making the presentations also has a bearing on how the case is perceived and how getting even might be accomplished!!
In relation to the Kyla Hall matter, the underlying issue is that the council stuffed up the maintenance of both halls, ultimately leading to the removal of the old Progress Hall (I was on the Sunset Committee, by the way) and by virtue of that impact on the community, council owes something if no more than as a gesture of goodwill (?) – the precedent had already been established and accepted. Experienced councillors, as the feather duster claims to be, should be able to see this and work out a way of not necessarily making an exception of waiving the hall fees – not that it’s been a problem over the past four years anyhow – like, making an annual donation to the association equivalent to the hall fees (which by the way aren’t even as high as Lei quoted because the whole hall isn’t needed, just the meeting room and kitchenette!).
This donation thingo has been done umpteen times before and certainly a dozen or so in the feather duster’s time on council.
Then there is the difference between having had 9 years’ experience or in his case 1 years’ experience 9 painful times!
And then there’s the choice between being dense, objective, objectionable and/or vindictive
Sorry you asked?
The Coila Connection!
