Opinion article by The Daily Examiner Editor, Jenna Cairney, 22 September 2012:
Divided council will fail
I hate to be a fence-sitter but I am trying to reserve judgment on the issue. I'm sure Mr Baker won't mind me referring to him as a rogue councillor.
On one hand, I admire someone who challenges, questions and defies. But I tend to agree with letter writer Greg Clancy today when he says a successful council must work as a team.
The truth is, regardless of whether his cause is noble or not, Mr Baker needs to get the other councillors to vote with him.
Word is, council is planning to hire a media officer in coming months, which should make life interesting for us.
Speaking of media officers, I think if councillor candidate Jane Beeby has any intention of running again in four years, she may be wise to hire one (see Thumbs Up Thumbs Down).
Joke or no joke, publicly bagging Grafton on Facebook made me very defensive and someone who sees us as "fat, sick and nearly dead" is not someone I want representing us on council.
As we have all learned in recent months, the only way for the Valley to survive and prosper is to stick together and take a bit of pride in ourselves and what we can achieve.
Here at The Daily Examiner it's become a mantra. Don't miss Monday's paper for a great story by Kate Matthews about what can be achieved when we take a united stand.
The politically pugnacious property developer and recently elected Cr. Andrew Baker has apparently decided who his enemies are, even before his first Clarence Valley Council ordinary monthly meeting, if this Letter to the Editor in The Daily Examiner on 24 September 2012 is any indication:
Response to editorial
HELLO Jenna,
What an interesting page 14 you have in your paper of Saturday 22nd September last.
Are you suggesting I should join "the team" in the way you joined the $8000 State Government-sponsored weekend away in Sydney recently? That $8000 has sure prevented any more bites at that hand.
Your page does many things to draw attention to opinions of me and a couple of failed candidates.
You give failed candidate Clancy free reign to show his true self in his presumption to lecture me on how I should conduct myself in public life. Now that is news when the failure seeks to teach the successful. With your encouragement, that's really precious!
Perhaps most disgraceful of all is your use of a prominent article where you seemingly advise all councillors to now think as one mind. You just don't say which one mind we should use? Or did you mean the mind of Guru Greg? In giving your advice you just repeat the worthless advice of failed candidate Clancy - yet you completely ignore the hopes expressed on the same page by the highly-respected, long-time community leader Des Plunkett.
The following facts are available to all of us:
Of the 28,647 formal first preference votes, 11,899 voters (41.5%) did not want any previous councillors returned.
Five of the previous six councillors received a combined total of just 7,515 (26.23%) of the vote.
3,075 voters (10.73%) gave their vote to me (more than 40% of the combined votes of those 5).
1,275 (4.45%) voted for Greg Clancy. He was not elected.
You might further note Clancy admitted to a comprehensive election campaign.
I had no paid advertising, no leaflets, no posters, flyers, letterbox drops, or polling place meet and greet. I did no door knocking or anything else really. I started independent, finished independent-and-alone, and will remain so. I am non-factional, unaligned and am not beholden to anyone.
So you publish the diatribe of a failed candidate telling me where I have gone wrong. Well, Greg now has four years to cry into his glass of organic vinegar.
Perhaps before you next repeat the advice of failed candidate Clancy on how others should conduct themselves in public life, you might avoid the appearance you too have sucked on that glass of vinegar. It just seems your eyes have misted over to the truth of the election outcome.
I accept you have the editorial benefit of giving a malicious spray whenever you feel so moved. Can I suggest you avoid doing it directly into the wind?
Please be clear. I did not ever offer to climb on board the council bus to nowhere. The bus I have witnessed for four years. I would prefer to walk by myself to somewhere than have a jolly time riding to nowhere, thanks.
And please, please, never think I will be encouraged onto the bus by a weekend of indulgence at ratepayers', or taxpayers' expense. MY soul ain't for sale.
I certainly do understand the team mentality thing that some naive people hold up as the answer to every institutional prayer.
This is still apparently the forlorn hope of a team that has trained hard for four years to perfect mediocrity. Of course they will say "let's try it for one more year to see if, by some miracle, a different result occurs". I don't subscribe to the theory that repeating one year of mediocre performance three more times will produce anything better than a wasted four years.
In the meantime, the 73% of voters that didn't want ANY of the five incumbent councillors will be left to wonder how your recycling of advice from a failed candidate can help this Clarence Valley? Please tell them.
Now to the good news.
Your announcement that council has decided to employ a media officer creates another low point in council decision making. This major policy-decision-by-media-release, before all councillors have even heard about it, let alone agreed to it, is a monumental insult to those councillors who thought they would receive some respect when it came to decision making. I didn't naively expect that respect, by the way.
Maybe all our decisions will be made for us by media release?
Of course, and it's clearly too late now, had I been asked if I agreed to this new policy of having a media officer employed in a new position, I would have suggested to my colleagues that we try truth-in-government to see how that feels. And it would have saved the money. Looks like I won't get that opportunity?
Please feel free to encourage my views anytime you like.
Andrew Baker
Clarence Valley councillor
On the basis of the Editor’s note alone this round goes to The Daily Examiner in the face of Baker’s needless penned aggression.
One has to suspect that Cr. Baker may be trying to cow the local media into not reporting any further on his financial difficulties and the forthcoming fire sale by appointed receivers of ten of his companies' properties.
