Prior to Dec 2021, the Ballina Council under the stewardship of Mayor David Wright was a relatively progressive, well-balanced council largely free of corrosive party politics – what a difference two years makes. The election of Mayor Sharon Cadwallader, and Councillors Eva Ramsey, Nigel Buchanan and Rod Bruem under the deceptive banner of ‘Independents’ appears to have opened up a cache of opportunistic conservative politics.
First they try to dismantle Ballina’s strong environmental regulations by resting the imposition of a review of the C2 Conservation Zone initiated by Council mapping staff, and allowing landholders to ‘opt in’ to a scheme where they can have their properties rezoned to outdated, less restrictive environmental regulations from the 1980s.
Cr Bruem calls this ‘property rights’, and our ‘Independent’ Mayor Sharon Cadwallader again had to use her casting vote to carry Cr Bruem’s motion.
Full credit to Crs Johnson, Chate, Dicker, Meehan and McCarthy for standing up for the last remaining 20 per cent of Ballina Shire’s natural vegetation.
If the proposed changes this gang of four ultra-conservative councillors are trying to force through the Electoral Commission are approved, regarding the redistribution of A and B Wards, it will be harder to remove them at the upcoming local government elections, and that’s a very scary thought.
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. 
