Yes Cr Ibrahim, democracy does include ‘divergent opinions’ but there is much more to it than that.
The Echo gave us a good summary of events at the last council meeting (March 17) and process was clearly very poor in the examples CABS singled out for criticism.
As your raft of amendments to the draft Rural Land Use Strategy was apparently submitted only a couple of days before the meeting, proper scrutiny was impossible and your ‘bloc’ just pushed it through – not good enough.
We believe there are a number of inadequacies in the Elements DA, not least that such major changes from the original warranted a new application, but your group was unprepared to wait for answers to important questions raised and, again, just pushed it through.
As for the Coastal Zone Management Plan, the process has been seriously flawed for some time and it is obviously being driven by a group of wealthy landowners at Belongil at the expense of the rest of us. There are many hundreds of examples worldwide of the effects of sea walls on beaches: basically they destroy them.
CABS is well-informed and serious in its criticism. We want a council which listens to community and adheres to the Community Charter for Good Planning it endorsed in 2014, nothing less is acceptable.
Jenny Coman for CABS
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. 
