Posted 7/10/11
Residents' Email Circulated To Woodend Community, 25 September 2011
Dear all, please read, action and pass on at your earliest convenience – only 3 days until council consider the Villawood proposal!
Are you happy with the “inaction” of councillors that represent Woodend? If not, you need to let them know .... right now!
If you are not aware, Woodend sits in the West Ward of the Macedon Ranges Shire and we have 3 councillors that represent this ward .... Crs. Benson, Jukes & Manning.
The MRSC Settlement Strategy and now the proposal by Villawood Properties for their Davies Hill development must be two of the most significant issues for the Woodend community in recent times. What have we seen from ‘our’ 3 councillors?
Plaudits to Councillor Manning who has engaged the Woodend community in ongoing discussion on the Settlement Strategy / Villawood proposal and indeed was responsible for the motion at the May 25th council meeting which was taken to a council meeting with State Planning Minister, Matthew Guy, and led to a properly convened town meeting for the Woodend community, and ultimately to a revised Settlement Strategy being adopted on July 27th.
However, councillors Benson and Jukes have been somewhat conspicuous in their silence. Why?
We have heard nothing at all from Councillor Benson on these matters, although we do acknowledge that she did give birth to twins back in June / July.
Councillor Jukes’ public involvement, from what we have seen, has been limited to an appearance at a hastily arranged (to all but a few) ”community meeting” back in May, which from appearances was primarily convened to allow Villawood to sing their own praises / sell their wares.
At the official town meeting at St Ambrose Hall on July 13th, councillors Manning, McLaughlin, Guthrie and Letchford spoke publicly .... councillors Benson & Jukes were silent.
In case you are not aware, we would also highlight that back in 2009 Crs. Benson & Jukes voted in favour of the Braemar amendment (C45) to allow for a rezoning of part of Golf Links Hill (Davies Hill) land.
An interesting feature of the vote was Cr. Jukes declaring an interest because his children attend Braemar, but this was apparently seen as only giving Cr. Jukes the same interest in the matter as the rest of the community and Cr. Jukes did not leave the room while the vote was taken.
At that time it was puzzling to understand how Cr. Jukes could be seen as sharing the same interest in this matter as everyone else in the Shire - relatively speaking, very few other residents have children at Braemar (many of the college's students come from outside the Shire), and this vote advantaged Braemar.
This time around, based on the responses we have received and read on Braemar’s recent letter to Woodend residents, Cr. Jukes would clearly not be sharing the same interest in this matter as everyone else in the Shire!
Braemar have shown themselves as the ‘elephant in the room’ on the Villawood Properties proposal ... are any councillors sitting on the elephant’s back?
Should a Councillor with children at the school and / or children on the waiting list be voting on a controversial proposal that benefits the school? There might be several in this position.
Did you know Council has a councillor representative on the school’s Board of Governors, and has done for years? Does this conflict council in making this decision?
Are you happy with the representation being provided by Cr’s Benson & Jukes? Are you happy with the recent public push by Braemar to garner support for the Villawood proposal? Are they pressing councillors to do the same? Are you confident councillors with a potential conflict of interest will declare that interest? If not please at least send an email to our two ‘inactive’ West Ward councillors, before Wednesday.
Cr. Henryka Benson - CrHenrykaBenson@bigpond.com
Cr. Roger Jukes - CrRogerJukes@bigpond.com
Other councillors email addresses are cc’d here if you wish to email all.
Please also help us to show council that there is no place for the Villawood Davies Hill proposal in our community and that we will be closely watching their actions / comments this Wednesday evening in seeing whether they are acting responsibly in what they were elected to do ..... represent the community, consider a planning proposal based on planning policies and to act, impartially and objectively.
Please attend this Wednesday night’s council meeting:
Wednesday, September 28th – 7:00pm
Gisborne Administration Centre, 40 Robertson Rd. (opposite the Police Station)
Best regards