Local Council elections September 2012

Yep, dead right Robbie-o, these new ones might shall we say be a blank canvas, some of the worn in ones we have up here are on the nose!

Whilst support from the Councillors is definitely beneficial, it is the support of the sport and recreation planners that is essential to further MTB areas and support in each LGA. I'm unsure about Lake Macquarie's smaller sister, Newcastle, but the Lake Mac planners are seeking to change their standard Plan of Management approach to permit sustainable mtb activities on their land and investigating alternatively funding models for their maitenance.

Spoke to Mark Greenhill (Blue Mountains Councilor) on the weekend. He said he is running in September but a lot are leaving. I also thanked Mark for his efforts last month.

But FWIW the Save Our Suburbs group are a state level political party primarily concerned with "overdevelopment" and opposed in a general sense to developers.

I don't know for sure but I doubt that they would care as a party about bicycles or MTB at all.

My admittedly shaky recollection is that SOS provides a "registered political party" to individuals and groups at a local level - something which is required in State and Federal elections and which was made quite difficult for smaller groups by certain legislation changes a few years ago.

UPDATE: here is the Local Government Elections website where you can find your Council's page then click through to 2012 election details, thence to candidate profiles.

Thanks Guys, I'll listern contently and if anything of concern is raised I'll share it.

Edit:

The "Friends of Narrabeen Lagoon" invited present and prospective council candidates to, in turn, answer 14 question relating to the Lagoon, tonight at the Narrabeen Tram shed.
Apart from the many question variations along the vein of "what would you do to protect the Lagoon, water quality, Fauna, Flora, future development, and so on it was the following two points that stirred my interest.

1) There is the quest to have the Lagoon and Catchment area turned into a state park. This concerns me, as they still consider mountain bikes as part of the threat (grouped together with 4WD & motor bikes) and needs to be controlled.......

www.narrabeenlagoon.org.au/Threats/threats.htm

2) Acquisition of sensitive land was also raised. Connie Harris (a present Greens Councillor, that just so happens to live in one of the houses on Morgan Rd that we park in front of for our rides in Oxford Falls), wants a levy put on residents, or get Gov grants to fund buying land of high sensitivity. She specifically made note of the “Sisters of Good Samaritan” land which I think may be the area of Red Hill atop of Cromer.

www.narrabeenlagoon.org.au/Newsletters/news23.pdf

My two cents worth is I support the efforts of most of all the people that show interest in the Lagoon and Catchment area but my personal take is the area can and should be used and enjoyed, not just looked at from a far.

re: Warringah, it's been awhile since I had interaction with them, but Conny Harris and Christina Kirsch seemed to be reasonably well-disposed to mountain bikers, as they see us as allies against development. They have moved past their default position being anti-mtb, to judging things on their merits.

Most of the rest of the incumbents are supportive, for a variety of reasons that are mostly pragmatic. We've gone from being the "ratbag element" to being complained about by some constituents due to our "political influence" LOL!

I'd expect this to continue so long as we continue to be reasonably well-behaved and the evidence supports councillors' support of us.

So play nicely, be respectful, but continue pushing the sustainable and responsible fair access message.

A good sound bite to use is that walkers and mountain bikers are similar percentages of the population, but mountain bikers have only 1% of singletrack access despite having similar environmental footprint.

In addition to Hawkeyes comments the current Mayor, Michael Regan has been massively supportive for Manly Dam, Red Hill and Oxy and also DJ. So has Virginia.

Craig Whitting for Manly Council has also been batting for us.