Shire Council elections will be on
again in October, so it is time to consider whether you should have a go
at representing yourself and your neighbours to help get the local government
Bridgetown/Greenbushes needs.
If you agree with me that there is something wrong with the
way our Council is being run, you should think seriously about trying to change
things.
What we have here in Bridgetown is a firmly embedded and
entrenched clique of people who benefit either by being a part of the current
administration, or being allied with the current administration.
The only way in to take away the control these people have
and improve the way things are done is through Council elections. Only when we see a majority of councillors who
are smart enough and independent enough to challenge the status quo, will we
see change.
But it is tough. In a
community of around 4000, we have a large percentage of the voting population
either employed by the Council (50 employees and nine councillors), or who
benefit from Council spending. All those
with vested interests have partners and friends, so that’s a large number of
motivated voters who will always support the status quo.
The Council does nothing to improve the economic wellbeing
of the district. It simply collects
ever-increasing amounts of money from ratepayers and spends it on its employees
and maintaining lots of empty buildings. In order to be seen to be achieving
something, it has borrowed large amounts of money and spent large amounts of
reserve funds to build a new library and new swimming pool. (Note: we already had an adequate library and
a perfectly good pool. One needed a bit more room and the other some repairs.)
We could do better. Much better. It is time to put
Bridgetown on the map. The economy of
this area used to be based on agriculture, but this is waning. The economy is now reliant on visitors and
population growth. The Shire Council
needs to provide leadership to help Bridgetown to grow, help promote the area
and boost economic activity. All we get
from our current Shire President is endless motherhood statements about
volunteers and road safety.
Please consider helping to move your community forward by
nominating for Council. Go along to a
couple of Council meetings and you will see for yourself how they sit there and
vote on street name changes for an hour, then sit down for a ratepayer-funded
feed.
We certainly deserve more.
If you are interested,
call me on 9761 4410.
