Byron Shire’s financial woes are not the result of a lack of money, but rather the waste of it. While it might be tempting to suggest Byron Council spends like drunken sailors, drunken sailors actually spend their own money. Byron Council displays no obvious regard for the fact that they actually spend the money of local ratepayers. This attitude problem, coupled with the demographic influx of numerous novel runaways and rebels against reality, seems to have resulted in a Council that is viewed by both residents and incumbents alike as a hobby horse for pet projects and political causes. It appears almost impossible to get a solid consensus in Byron Shire on the basic essentials councils are supposed to administer.
While people that live in the Shire trash talk Council, Council is a reflection of the local people; the people get the council they demand.
The bed tax is a great cover story for the hijacking of a local council by an unbroken stream of cultural revolutionaries which need to take their agenda somewhere else, so that Byron Council might once again serve the local people as per its state-sanctioned mandate.
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. 
