NORTH BANK: TIME FOR A RETHINK

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It is possibly said to be TOO LATE but it may, no should, not be. These SHEDS are full of potential, potential that if realised will put jobs in the community and a diversity of income opportunities and community amenity that might not otherwise be there. 

There has been no realistic wide ranging consultation in regard to this so called development on the North Bank. It seems that a huddle of self appointed opportunists worked out a way to get some public money and their slice of the pie. That's not too bad, but obviously opportunities have been overlooked if they were looked for at all.

Now most, well some, of those people might now have a chance to think laterally and find a more inclusive, more equitable, more enterprising, SET of solutions. These are not solutions that come in bottles ready to be applied to an annoying group of issues, they need to be worked on and in open and transparent ways. 

BUT there is a hurry. Why the hurry? If anyone can answer this it would be good to hear what it might be.

This is where the community comes in. Rather than imagine that the problems are too big for ordinary people it turns out that they have proven too big for whoever gave themselves the task of redeveloping community property. Its time to stop and start over and this time to look for win-wins!

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NOW HERE IS AN IDEA ... HAS ITS DAY COME?

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A BLOODY GOOD STORY ... "Imagine your local council didn't exist. In its place, a small group of people performed only the bare functions of government. Generic tasks were outsourced. Rate collection and capital works were outsourced too. Part-time contractors were employed by the council for specialist work. If service delivery was not satisfactory, the council could switch suppliers quickly. .... Read more here

For mine I think it is time to totally rethink this council idea when we elect 'representatives' and they are persuaded to hand all the authority we give them to an unaccountable GM and his 'underlings'!

The current model is BROKEN! Its time to fix it! While considering amalgamation lets start thinking outside the box ... let us invent a new model. Tasmania would be just the place to give this a go!

Proper Wealth for Launceston

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Local Government is going to be faced with ever increasing demands to be more accountable and more inclusive socially. Constituents are looking at wealth creation in different ways and their council needs to keep them on their game and not some interest group's, developer's , whoever's, looking to make a quick buck.

So if communities are becoming more assertive in regard to their right to be informed as well as being more engaged in, and having more influence in, decision-making processes – Government's, Councils' and other public institutions' decisions – it is not too surprising.

Faced with the demands of their constituency, council officers and Aldermen, should be looking for new ways to evaluate their performance and in particular Aldermen should be mindful of evaluating their own performance and and their level of engagement with their constituents.

Strategic planning in Launceston needs a review because up until now this Council and its officers are planning for a future that is unlikely to happen. As a consequence Launceston Council is debt in order to keep the 'council overlords' in 'underlings' – and the ratepayers out of pocket.

“A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody 

ought not to be trusted by anybody.” 
Thomas Paine

MORE WATCHERS ON BOARD IT SEEMS

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This group is on Launceston City Council's case too! They are, they say, committed to turning up and watching what goes on at TOWN HALL and good on them. The more people doing that and the more transparent Launceston's local government becomes the better.

Each individual, each precinct group, each business network, every ratepayers group, whoever that opens a case file on Launceston Town Hall, well the more engaged "the elected 12 around the table" are likely to be.  Local government all too often has an unhealthy smell about it.

What is really really worrying is that there are still people in local government that think that "the punters out there elected us to make decisions" when the "punters" thought that they were actually electing representatives. They also probably thought that their representatives would consult with then once in a while. Let's make sure they do!

Anyway it is good to see a network of ACCOUNTABILITY KEEPERS evolving in cyberspace keeping the city's representers on the game representing them and not some nefarious self-interest group trying to clamber under the wire.