Your front-page story on the Housing Options Paper is a scandal. How many readers believe that a council with nothing to hide would gaslight the citizens and the media about public submissions on a topic of public interest?
Mayor Michael Lyon and his staff are doing all they can to delay releasing details on public submissions. The submissions are from members of the public, to a public entity, concerning local public policy.
Which part of this three-part equation does Mayor Lyon not understand?
Inflating the labour needed to redact passages that might embarrass the Council is a transparent attempt to delay their release and to extort money from you. Much better that they should be transparent about their decisions and operations instead.
In fact, it should be mandatory to make all submissions public as a matter of course. Just like submissions to parliament.
Instead, this shameless Council resorts to obfuscation and obstruction.
They work for and answer to us. Not the other way round.
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. 
