We are informed that Byron Shire Council (BSC) has, in a sense, ‘given up the ghost’. It has run out of money to address its large infrastructure of community responsibilities that govern sewage, huge knee-high potholes in roads, an ageing community in need of specialised care, overworked and insufficient space for hospital staff and patients, homeless people, community resistance to affordable housing demands, no doubt the growing impacts of climate change linger, such as rising water and threats of fire, as El Nino approaches Australia, with devastating predictions.
BSC has had to deal with pesky developers who have taken the organisation to the corporate ‘Land and Development Court’ – once understood to be the Land and Environment Court. To deal with the perceived threatened legal risk it has informed the community that its plight has been addressed by any potential legal attack. Fiscal demand has outstripped supply. Corporate capital development wants the community to pay its share of desired infrastructure. The corporate shark has attacked the bleeding community. The shark is not a democratic creature – it is autocratic and authoritarian in its demands! Its bite is cruel and inhumane to all sentient beings. It lobbies and flashes its big money to a Sydney-centric NSW state government and somehow everyone falls into place!
The community need to come together to organise a Bill of Rights with the aid of Amnesty International.
Jo Faith, Newtown
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. 
