Council determined to kill off Blues Festival

One of the best things Bridgetown has going for it is the annual Blues at Bridgetown festival.  It brings thousands of visitors to the town, puts us on the map and delivers major economic benefits.
Naturally, our Shire Council wants to kill it off.

This month's Council agenda (for tomorrow night's meeting) reveals that at a behind-closed-doors meeting of councillors recently, it was suggested that the rules regarding street stalls and vendors during the festival be reviewed. For reviewed, read changed.  They want the number and location of street vendors curtailed.

I would bet London to a brick that it was none other than Shire President Tony Pratico who led the call for this.  If you go back to a post here from November this year, you will see that he kicked up a stink after last year's Blues Festival, complaining that coffee vendors were stealing business from the coffee machine in his fried chicken shop.

Councillors must be aware that the Blues Festival has battled in recent years to keep the event going due to the difficulty of running the event at a profit.  Yet, now they are talking about giving the organisers a kick in the guts by reducing their ability to sell spots to vendors.

Background to the Council Agenda item states: The feedback from councillors at the informal meeting held on 10 April 2014 was that there was a need for the Shire to have input into the location of stalls and traders so as to avoid conflict between stalls and adjacent businesses selling the same or similar product.

It would be absolutely improper for Mr Pratico to use his position as a councillor and President to enhance the profitability of his business during the Blues festival by getting rid of any competition in the area. Surely he will not take part in debate and voting on this?  He has already been found guilty once by the Local Government standards panel of failing to declare an interest in agenda items.

The fact that this item even made it onto the agenda is a disgrace.

Bridgetown… the end of the line for progress

trog•lo•dyte (ˈtrɒg ləˌdaɪt)
n.

1. a prehistoric cave dweller.

2. a person of degraded, primitive, or brutal character.

3. a person living in seclusion; hermit.

4. an extremely old-fashioned or conservative person; a reactionary.

5. an animal living underground. 

 

While the civilised world is moving ahead and experiencing progress and change, citizens of Bridgetown can feel safe living here, protected from modern improvements.

A little over ten years ago, when we first came to Bridgetown I marvelled at a story in the local paper about how money to widen and make safer Winnejup Road had to be returned to the State Government after locals successfully persuaded the Shire not to go ahead with the improvements because it would mean knocking down some mature trees on the side of the road.

“Look around, there is no shortage of trees!” I cried.

I often amuse incredulous friends in the city with my summary of how Main Roads wanted to spend millions to re-route the trucks around our main street, but because some locals protested the Shire held a referendum and even though the referendum result was a “yes” to the by-pass, they said “no” because the yes vote only won the count narrowly.

It was therefore entirely predictable that the Council would bend immediately to the will of the small group who didn’t like the idea of the National Broadband Network being rolled out here because the towers needed would be near their properties or would cause a few trees to be cut down.

One local resident summed up the prevailing mindset when he told the local paper: “It would be good if we could have faster internet without having the towers in town.”  An instant classic!

That’s Bridgetown… we’ll have improvements, but only if you promise nothing will change.

So we keep on knocking back millions of dollars offered to build us safer roads, better infrastructure and deliver state-of-the-art communications. 

But why worry, who needs the NBN when we have a brand new $4m library facility which allows people to go and borrow books? It might have been redundant as soon as it was built due to the internet, the Kindle and the ipad, but hey, that’s progress, Bridgetown style.