Menkit Prince, Uki
Looks like Tweed shire’s pro-development councillors have been on the rampage again.
At the last council meeting it was approved to give mayor Gary Bagnall a mentor when he already has two mentors and recently attended a mayoral conference. Cr Carolyn Byrne’s motion appeared to be about improving all councillors’ behaviour by offering them a mentor, but in fact it was a front line attack on mayor Bagnall.
Her long list of mayor Bagnall’s ‘crimes,’ half-baked and hyped up, read like an Inquisition.
His biggest crime apparently was to refuse to apologise to Nationals’ member for Tweed, Geoff Provest. for requesting a CSG-free sign at the entrance to Tweed Shire (which he has now done, under duress).
Crs Michael Armstrong and Katie Milne pointed out the importance of councillors working together in spite of different views – in the spirit of co-operation and respect, instead of a ‘Tweed Wars’ style of communication which Cr Byrne promoted on her pre-election website.
Cr Longland appears to have recently sided with the pro-development faction, presumably to spite the pro-environment faction for not voting him in as mayor for the third year in a row. And because he voted with Cr Byrne’s cohorts, her motion to waste more ratepayers’ money was voted in.
More disturbingly, Cr Longland also voted against a motion by Cr Milne for a report from the state government on Private Native Forestry Agreements current and planned for the shire along with their impact on threatened species and indigenous values.
There is an alarming trend to log our biodiverse areas when we already have the highest number of threatened species in Australia.
What a disappointment he is to those who voted him in thinking he would help protect our environment!
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
