Cr Michael Lyon, The Pocket
I would like to address the latest round of Green bashing from inside and outside the party in recent letters.
Firstly, Paul Gannon who seems to be blaming this Council, and the four out of nine Greens on it, for the decisions of the previous Council. Mercato was resolved 7–2 by the last Council and one of the two Greens on that Council voted against it. In any case, the result was far better than what we could have ended up with on that site. Council doesn’t have a magic wand to stop any development it wants. There are rules in place that we have to play by and on this development Council punched well above its weight.
Secondly, Tom Tabart from 1,500 miles away is representing the minority anti-bypass, anti-any development faction of the local Greens and is showing us they seem to be lacking a local attack-dog these days.
As Tom is living in Victoria, he will not be aware that the resolution at the February Greens meeting for Byron Greens Councillors to reconsider the Business and Industrial Lands Strategy was actually withdrawn. It came to light that apart from the proposer, pretty much no one else had actually read the strategy, apart from the Councillors, so did not feel qualified to comment.
As someone who has managed businesses in this Shire for ten years, and seen what has happened to rents, I stand by our decision to identify additional lands for businesses to expand in the Shire and to attempt to put some downward pressure on rents.
The membership has entrusted Councillors to do the work and represent them using our best judgement. Those of us again seeking preselection will soon be evaluated and asked to explain in detail our reasoning and the rationale for the decisions we have made during this term. I look forward to this and believe that when all is said and done we will be judged favourably firstly by the membership and then by the electorate at large.
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. 
