Oh Dear Lordess, if only there were some leadership around this place.
Apologies for banging on about it – as I have before.
Let’s take Mullumbimby.
Without any interest from councillors to make improvements, it looks set to just continue to deteriorate more and more.
I am not talking about the good looking individuals that make up this town. You are all wonderful. And all you people in Mullumbimby do wonderful things.
It’s about leadership. If there was leadership, a budget might be found to weed the gardens more often, and actually build kerbs and gutters, so drainage improves.
Last weekend’s flash flooding was another reminder that this town (like parts of Ocean Shores, etc) is on a floodplain, and does not have the drainage infrastructure to cope.
It’s not entirely fair to bag Council for this lack of civic pride – the reality is that they are over a barrel with their overlords, the state and federal governments.
Yet surely there could be improvements.
Have you seen the state of the surrounds around Council’s own buildings, for example? For years, the rail corridor and adjacent car park has been overgrown and full of potholes!
It’s not as though Council doesn’t have access to a personal army of road and garden crews.
Who knows, if Council found a leader somewhere in the building and stuff improved, it may spark interest from commercial landowners around town to step up do some renovations on their own buildings too.
Yes, it’s a tough job being leader.
The last Council tried to improve Burringbar Street by restricting car movements and adding more trees, but had to back down after the unwashed masses gave it a hard ‘no’.
It’s just the leaders at the time weren’t very good. So now we have slightly new ones.
This leads to what is shaping up now in the town – a slow motion planning disaster.
Let’s all get land conned
On Monday afternoon, I attended the public meeting at the Ex-Services Club around plans to build 32-units over a car park at the entrance to the town, as well as the proposal to relocate that car park to the entry of the town, opposite the former Tony Carsburg site (see page 1).
It’s led by NSW government development agency Landcom, and the plans so far presented are like what a speculating developer generally submits – unrealistic excessive bulk and scale to maximise profit.
You would hope governments would lead with best design principles, but no.
The feeling in the room from attendees was under-whelming.
And while the Landcom folk were polite, there was a genuine lack of understanding of the challenges this town faces. And why would they care anyway?
Councillors should. Making Mullum better would endear them to this community more than this ugly bullshit. Who do these councillor represent?
Feedback on the Landcom proposal is open until December 9 at www.joinin.landcom.nsw.gov.au/mullumbimby.
Hans Lovejoy, editor
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. 
