Mayor Karen Williams has gone ..
and Beards are out of fashion!
Greg Underwood will be our new Mayor from Saturday 19th March.
Now we need to ensure we vote for Councillors, who like Greg, have principles.
See: Our Preferred Candidate List
And for Division Two (Cleveland and North Stradbroke):
We particularly have to remember the man who did more than any other Councillor to highlight the conflict of interest in Council and the lack of transparency in its workings: Craig Ogilvie.
Donations from developers are not yet illegal here in Queensland, but could be banned in the near future. Redland City Council recently voted to lobby the State Government to ban all political donations to Councillors including candidates running for elections. Let’s not forget that the vote came after Councillor Craig Ogilvie proposed a motion to ban donations by developers. Craig has campaigned for years to highlight the unhealthy relationships between Redland City Councillors and commercial development interests. Craig Ogilvie’s determined stance could have positive State wide implications for the way Council business is conducted.
But there’s another important reason we should vote for Craig:
See: Cleveland and Straddie is where most of the Redland City’s problems and challenges are.
Division Two needs strong, capable leadership. Continue to support Craig Ogilvie – he’s done nothing wrong and a hell of a lot right
With Mayor Williams gone, we’re already looking to the future:
With Councillor balance restored, we’ll be turning our attention from next week to what makes Redlands liveable. For too long, the Redlands City Council has been preoccupied with large scale residential development and it has taken the focus off all the features that make the Redlands such a special place. We’ve ignored the value to be captured from its natural assets and human and cultural resources.
What Redlands needs is a vision for the future, where everyone is involved in bringing ideas and concepts to the table.
We need to get the balance right between residential development, local industry, agriculture and green spaces. Done right it can make the Redlands safer, healthier and more liveable whilst providing better opportunities for business and employment.
We’ve started our first tentative steps toward how we think this goal could be achieved. See: Tourism Opportunities. It will provide a much needed focus for Council away from residential development to enable economic, social, cultural and environmental balance. In other words, to provide opportunities and resources that everyone can benefit from.
We’ll need help with this so give us your feedback. Redlands doesn’t just have fertile soil, it has many fertile minds and the community hasn’t had a voice these past 4 years. Together we should be able to show how this beautiful, bayside area in which we live – with proper council priorities and planning – can set the pace and use its natural resources, its business, history, arts and culture, to become the envy of south-east Queensland.
However, the functional efficiency and innovation required for such a plan can only thrive in a constructive atmosphere free of developer funded decision making.
So for Candidates that do not accept developer funds for their campaigns, click here ..
