Firstly, do note that Byron Shire Council (BSC) put the rates up less than ten years ago.
As for us two, who’ve lived here 34 years, and having run for 40 years a national foundation to conserve the diversity of traditional varieties of useful plants, we have lived on a tiny income that is less than the pension, less than the dole.
We will not be able to afford this proposed rate hike. It’s not whether we want more services. It’s whether we can afford them. We can’t.
I speak not just for ourselves, but for the landed poor, the pensioners, the elderly. We might have been lucky enough to buy our homes when prices were relatively low, but we have little income. Rates are pretty much our greatest expenditure.
Example: potholes – I’ve always thought they are rather romantic. They slow the traffic; they lend a bucolic air to the scene; the macadam is too thin anyway, so they just reappear. Just live with them.
There’s an environmental reason for living with less luxury, less consumption. It’s called climate change.
BSC – just downsize. If you want to continue having residents that care for the earth and care that people get to live in a comfortable climate range, then lessen works, lessen expenditure, lessen maintenance. It’s a clear choice.
The tenor of Byron township’s residents has already strayed away from a low-income, but vibrantly-creative bunch of eccentrics, into city-speeding, conformist, high-end consumers.
Don’t be dragged away from environmental consciousness into their spangled, hollow, meaningless ways.
Sent from a hard-won piece of paradise.
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. 
