Hello to the USofA, France, Russia, and Germany...hey y'all and welcome to the blog...and I know I've been bangin' on about the Rail Lands heaps, but it is the critical issue in Mt Gambier for nearly the past decade and it will be for some time as Council continues to pursue the Rail Lands Retail Agenda...whatever the genuine motivations for the RLRA, be it to stop rail forever, expand the Lakes Plaza, whatevs, the RLRA is an undeniable reality...but first these...
Wind Turbine Bias: continues on the ABC...I was deeply disappointed last week to hear on ABC Local Radio Late Afternoon with Annette Marner, the local Mayor (?sorry) praising up the 50+ Wind Turbines about to be erected near Snowtown...(yes, of the movie fame, and wasn't that a trite piece of fictional bullshit masquerading as a crap piece of documentary re-counting-Ed)...not a fan?...(that movie was vile, voyeuristic bullshit which barely skimmed the reality...a crap piece of C-grade film-making that was horribly factually wrong re the murderer's motivations...what's there to like?-Ed)...fair enough...
The ABC has been relentlessly biased in favour of Wind Turbine 'Development' (as per previous posts, including one of the most 'viewed' TMGI posts 'Extreme Turbine Propaganda on the ABC' from March 1st 2013)...Ms Marner on the other hand, has been a stoically objective commentator and, in comparison to some of the extraordinarily biased programming in Mt Gambier, almost a critic of Turbines...this program last week interviewed a pro-Turbine public official (the Mayor), and then ran a long propaganda piece from the CEC, and nothing that I heard from any critics...(absolute apologies if I missed it)...
(Oh, sweet baby cheeses, not the Clean Energy Council, the self-titled Renewable Industry lobby group that relentlessly bombards the media with outrageous lies about the alleged positives of Turbines whilst ignoring, denying, and/or contradicting any negatives-Ed)...that be they, the CEC...well a spokeswoman (?name-sorry) trotted out all the crap about how 'yeah electricity will be more expensive to start with but then it'll get cheaper', all the stuff about Renewable targets, etc, etc, all propaganda and not a mention of the limitations, faults, or failings...I note that the Late Afternoon producer is now Mark Jeffries, the same Mr Jeffries I had 'interactions' with here in Mt Gambier (previous posts)...
Pass The Dutchy To The Legal Side: as Jamaica legalises personal possession of 55g of marijuana in a bid to reduce 'criminalisation' of average people via the Courts...(55gms, how much is that?-Ed)...not sure...(this much?-Ed)...oh you are hilarious...(how about this much?-Ed)...yes, that's enough hilarity for one day thanks...(you seen my papers man?-Ed)...I'm just going to ignore you...(is that your hotdog?-Ed)...oh okay, yes, a Cheech and Chong reference, very clever, you done now?...(done? I'm fully baked dude-Ed)...moving on...
I'm Acknowledging: that more than one person has been adamant in
stating that the whole RLRA is not really about the massive
Retail/Commercial Expansion of the Lakes Plaza, but that the RLRA is a
screen/decoy/distraction for/from the reality, which is actually about
ensuring that Rail Services never return to Mt Gambier, thus shoring up
the future profits of a certain trucking company...(sounds perfectly reasonable given their past behaviours to shut it down in the first instance-Ed)...fair enough...
1) Opinion is unanimous that a certain local trucking company conspired and colluded to shut-down Rail service through/to Mt Gambier in the late 1980s/early 1990s because they made their profit shifting freight by road...(there used to be a Bluebird passenger service to Adelaide and everything-Ed)...indeed...
2) The City (therefore the citizens) of Mt Gambier was then 'gifted' the disused Old Rail Lands by the Rann Labor state government in late 2004...
3) The first plans produced by Council for the site (July 2005-previous posts) show a moved rail easement, a road extended through the site in a loop, and major Retail/Commercial development...
4) Next, February 2006 (previous posts) when Council presented multiple plans, all for Retail Expansion, and that completely ignored the widespread public calls for a Parkland on the site with associated central Bus Terminus...these 2 issues were repeatedly raised at the 'Public Consultation' meetings but waved away by then CEO Greg Muller as 'not popular'...(not popular? bollocks, everyone was asking about them-Ed)...well exactly, it's all part of the 'ignore what's inconvenient to our agenda' functioning of Mt Gambier City Council...
5) In 2009 Council re-zoned the site to Retail/Commercial and produced further plans, on their website, for that R/C development...
6) In November 2011 Council suddenly announced the $10million Parklands Concept Plan with a big presentation and media launch in the foyer of the Civic Centre (Helpmann Theatre), which produced some wonderful TV footage of me in my Grumpy Old Man t-shirt tuning in Councillor 'Swervin' Merv White re the stupidity of moving the Rail Easement...(classic-Ed)...
Contamination has been repeatedly used as an excuse by Council as to why nothing could be done with the site, but it had been open to the weather for 2 decades, there was no issue re a Parkland...the only possible genuine reason to move any 'contaminated' ground, would be to comply with building codes, etc, associated with a large development right across the site...(but it could have been to stop any further polluting of the Aquifer?-Ed)...they dug it up, turned it over, and buried it all again on site...(oh-Ed)...
Similarily, the Fake Lake is an Industrial Drainage Pond for the RLRA, not an inspired structure of social inclusion...both of these have been done to meet engineering requirements for a large building on that site...and the site has also been kept dead flat to accommodate future carpark space...and don't mention the bloody palm trees...
Council repeatedly claimed issues re the Deed and/or Rail Easement were stopping any progress on the site, yet that Easement re-positioning has been on all the R/C Plans since 2005, and then when it suited them, they just moved the Easement away from it's current position (and the Old Station) and ripped up all the tracks, etc...and all whilst openly claiming that they didn't know whether ratepayers will be liable or not for the cost of replacing all of that removed infrastructure...(lunacy-Ed)...
Council completely ignored the wide-spread public calls for a Bus
Terminal on the Rail Lands and instead built the $300,000 farcical
shade-sail Lady Nelson Bus Shelter isolated out on the Jubilee Hwy...(I've
always said that a renovated Old Rail Station would be a beautiful
Central Transport Hub for local buses, inter-city buses, and passenger
rail services-Ed)...well you are of course right, but the ORS has
always been 'surplus to requirements' re the RLRA, which is why Council
refuses to spend any money on it...it's days are surely numbered...
The Tourist Railway: was also shut down by Council to facilitate the RLRA...can't
have a well patronised tourism service operating out of a renovated ORS
doubling as a local bus/rail terminal...and of course there's the whole
Bunnings/Penola Rd disaster where Council tried to stop 'Peripheral
Retail Development', and the associated extraordinary re-zonings in the
Grant District Council that have destroyed organised, structured
Industrial Development around Mt Gambier...and the Fletcher Jones
fiasco, Council destroying a business so it too doesn't compete with the
RLRA...it just goes on and on...
Whatever the original motivation is, the basic plan has been the same, move the Rail Lines and build a massive expansion of the Lakes Plaza on it...and that's what Council has done with millions of dollars of borrowed money that ratepayers will be re-paying for decades to come...and all Council has done is clear the site ready for that building development, including a $700,000+ Fake Lake that is undeniably an Industrial Drainage Pond for the roof run-off from said pursued development...an industrial size roof area guarantees huge volumes of storm water run-off that Mt Gambier's drains just couldn't handle..
Council has taken a huge open site that should already be a lavish, established, undulating parkland with public plaza, amphitheatre, central bus/rail terminal, skate park, etc, linking the Main through the Lakes Plaza through Margaret St to a year round Aquatic Centre, covered netball/tennis courts, etc...and instead they've stalled and lied and carved it up into a series of unusable sections...the whole Fake Lake area is a right-off that will have to be fenced off as a drowning hazard, a classic example of how badly Council's plans have stuffed up that entire site...
Tomorrow: That Saving For A Raidy Day Post
(I knew we'd get there eventually-Ed)...yeah, fair enough, I've been a bit all over the shop lately...
I am still Nick Fletcher though and this is my blog...cheers and laters...
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