P Cordeiro, Ocean Shores
I have been a business (a marketeer) attending the Byron Bay Community Markets for around 16 years.
During this time, there were many issues raised and dealt with, just like every other market in the Shire.
But the beautification and positive energy that we got during recent years with coucillor Paul Spooner have been a great change, in spite of the terrible ordeals sorrowing the actual site and the dismissal of a manager.
I made my own complaints with the administration of the Byron community markets on a few occasions and I have always been treated with respect.
So I don’t feel surprised with the obvious misunderstandings with other matters that are far more difficult to deal with regarding the future of our Byron Bay Community Markets site for instance.
What upsets me deeply is to watch one of our strongest and loved councillors being bombarded personally. If coucillor Spooner were such a heartless individual, regarding the three months’ suspension of a marketeer, why would the committee let the marketeer sell their products at the current markets by someone else?
This ‘dirty washing’ needs to be dealt privately, between the community markets and marketeer. I sincerely hope that we can work this one out because I will miss terribly our ‘mornings free Opera’, as we set up our stalls early in the morning.
Coucillors Paul Spooner, Simon Richardson and Basil Cameron are the best team we ever had to deal politically against Liberal right-wing sitting in Council on ‘a pudding’ at our community’s expense and inhibiting sustainable progress for far too long. I hope that voters realise how certain people are trying so hard to dis and underestimate our loved councillors, and cause division between them.
To me the recent local media article is just another attempt to do just that.