The September 14 Council election campaigning is well underway, though it’s been somewhat low-key to date.
Until now, the most significant difference between Mayor Michael Lyon (independent, former Green) and Greens challenger Cr Sarah Ndiaye has been on the Wallum fiasco.
Cr Ndiaye wanted to spend Council’s legal resources to put pressure on the developer, Cr Lyon instead used his casting vote to give the developer their works certificate and then thought he could negotiate afterwards.
Did that get anywhere?
Anyway, there’s also Labor’s Asren Pugh wanting to be mayor for some reason, yet he supports the mayor on Wallum (and a lot of other things, besides).
Now there’s a new point of difference between Crs Ndiaye and Lyon – the future of Mullum’s locally-sourced water at the Wilsons Creek Lavertys Gap Weir – see further stories here and here.
Unfortunately, the rhetoric that surrounds this has a political smell, but either way, the decision councillors will make on August 15 has enormous implications for Mullum residents and future generations.
So we need all the information on the table, don’t we?
Attempts by The Echo to extract comment from the mayor during the public exhibition stage of Mullum’s water supply proposal were largely unsuccessful.
But on Monday night – after the public submissions were published – Cr Lyon bemoaned to his social media followers that the process had been skewed by his opponents, and made his case for getting rid of valuable infrastructure that any town would be envious of – a localised water source (with the added bonus of having an emergency connection to Rous).
He said, ‘Unfortunately, the Water and Sewer Committee of Council have delayed and obfuscated, requesting more and more information, presumably in the hope of reaching the answer they want to get to’.
The mayor wrote that a ‘preliminary, conservative analysis’ of an off-stream storage solution ‘would see the average water bill for a Mullum resident go up by $1,020’.
Notice how he wrote ‘preliminary’?
So it hasn’t really been looked at in any detail, which is what hydrologists and water engineers from Council’s Water and Sewer Committee raised concerns about.
The Echo previously published detailed questions by these water engineers which remain unanswered by Council staff.
It would seem reasonable to address those questions before making this significant decision.
Instead, we are told the issue has been around for two years (behind closed doors, mind you), and time is running out because of the ageing infrastructure.
The mayor’s preferred option would surely be disappointing for those who understand the climate uncertainty ahead.
And even if you don’t believe in climate change, flooding and fire events will happen again.
So why wouldn’t we try and be as prepared and self-reliant as possible?
Cr Lyon’s long essay didn’t dwell on that.
Is that a signal that he will not fight tooth and nail for the best community outcomes?
At least voters know what they will get if he is returned on September 14.
Hans Lovejoy, editor
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