MAYOR Ye Ken Halstead resumed office this week, taking charge again after some aberrant behaviour among his underlings during his absence overseas left a couple of loose ends to be tied around a couple of necks.
We anticipate a spate of notices of rescission may be required to get all programs back on course and in mayoral lockstep.
The motions, if any, may be debated during the distant December 14 meeting, the last until February 2012, but nothing positive can occur before 2012.
It is unlikely that Ye Ken would upset underling Larry “I tried my best, boss” Whipper’s use of the acting mayoral casting vote on federal funding to put their pet project, the late starting Moss Vale marina, ahead of a regional theatre, ready-to-go rebuild for Bowral’s memorial hall.
Sport or the arts, hardly a contest for an Aussie red-blooded male.
What about the “biggie” in terms of future employment and investment, the Boral application for continued mining operations at Medway?
The November meeting decided not to oppose the application, for which the government Mining and Primary industries mob will be the final arbiter. However, that was by a single vote, 4/3 and Ye Ken, not a Boral fan anyway, might like to have another look at that and give the opposing Medway folk a glimmer of hope, even if the issue will be well out of time by the February meeting.
He might even like to tidy up the intolerable mess, a CoC-up in fact, of the never-ending Mauger Code of Conduct (CoC) affair which Paul “the protector” Tuddenham muddled with twice and is still a boil on their collective backsides, which may be lanced by their overseers, the DLG.
HOT-POTATO comes in from the cold.
Ten-pin bowling, a hot-potato for a couple of councils here in the past decade or so, has come in from the cold, it seems.
Yesterday, the press was invited to meet the 25 local children engaged in the existing out of school hours program who are enjoying ten-pin bowling, sponsored by the council, at the Highlands Bowl in the Big-W site.
For years the sport was a political hot-potato, dropped by our elected ones time after time as various entrepreneurs such as the late Maurice Bratter, Charlie Johns and Theo Onisforou saw their dreams die in a welter of red tape and bloody-mindedness.
Now it has council’s blessing and is a benefit to all.
THE BIG-W site, in fact the whole area, was an ideological battleground on which big box blockers Gentleman Jim Clark and Larry “stonewall” Whipper waged their failed war of attrition in downtown Mittagong.
Amid the detritus of a drawn-out ideological conflict uptown, the derelict blue-wrapped Mittagong Central is now the dead heart of our proud town.
Big-W approval enabled a thriving commercial centre on the site where the Australian steel industry was born. Now supporters like Paul “time will tell” Tuddenham will soon realise his dream of a safe, sealed shared pathway (in coloured concrete) linking Welby and Mittagong.
Visionary progressives such as departed “time for changers” Nick Campbell-Jones, Penny George, Malcolm Murray and May King, along with Duncan “he’s the good guy” Gair and probably Big Jim Mauger, as he was once known, approved the Big W complex on a shop-zoned site.
So we ended up with the big box, lots of franchised shops, the bowl, the pathway and a multi-million dollar parcel of commercial land, courtesy of the progressives.
Properly managed, that vacant, correctly zoned land will more than offset the WSC overseas GFC investment losses wrongly attributed to the progressives by the current ruling clique as they attempt to rewrite history and discredit the achievements of others.
A BIG TICK to editor Mark Bransdon for his very positive support for the Burradoo River Park proposal at Wongabri, which would see a massive capital injection (I think about $60 million) in a lifestyle-theme seniors living development opposite The Briars.
David Alexander described it as a “world-class facility” on Page 1 on Wednesday, which will include a leisure centre and will open the riverland between Burradoo and Moss Vale to public access.
Financial constraints which saw a similar project from the same stable put on hold for about five years seem to have been overcome and it behoves the current, or the future, WSC to look at it with new eyes, even if a new regime will be necessary to get an equitable and transparent view.
ANOTHER tick for reader J. Hatton for requesting a clearer typeface in the “letters” pages and Mark again for responding to it, even if it emboldened a “Whipping” of Moi!
To avoid being too cryptic, Mate Larry (he calls us all “mate”, don’t you? Mate?) Whipper has handed me a feather lashing for daring to suggest the only leak at Ivory Towers was brain-drain at the top about his chaotic handling of the afore-mentioned Mauger CoC-up.
Okay, a further prediction: it ain’t over yet and when it is, the typeface will be HUGE!
DUDLEY’S lovely daughter Georgina, a speech therapist was working with a particularly difficult male class of chronic stammerers and making but little progress.
She had tried every technique in the book without the slightest success. No-one was improving.
Finally, thoroughly exasperated, she said: “If any of you can tell me, without stammering, the name of the town where you were born, I will have wild and passionate sex with you until your muscles ache and your eyes water.
“So, who wants to go first?”
The Englishman piped up.
“B-b-b-b-b-b-b-irmingham.”< p>“That’s no use, Trevor,” she said. “Who’s next?”
The Scotsman raised his hand and blurted out “P-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-aisley”.
“Th at’s no better. There’ll be no sex for you, I’m afraid, Hamish.”
“How about you, Paddy?”
The Irishman took a deep breath and eventually blurted out
“London .”
“Brilliant, Paddy!” said Georgina and immediately set about living up to her promise.
After 15 minutes of exceptionally steamy sex, the couple paused for breath and Paddy said “-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-erry”.
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