Missed opportunities
Dear mayor, councillors and staff,
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Some time ago Lucas Cattell from Cooma contacted BVSC expressing interest in buying the Australasia, but was told he had missed the tender deadline. Mr Cattell wanted to turn it into a boutique brewery and distillery with accommodation. This would be very popular with locals, cruise ship passengers and other visitors.
When BVSC declined the tenders, it had several options according to the tendering guidelines for NSW Local Government. BVSC could have invited fresh tenders or applications. Instead it chose to negotiate with the highest ranked tenderer even though public information about this developer is troubling to say the least.
Why wasn’t Mr Cattell’s proposal considered sooner when the tenders were rejected? It looks like Eden is missing this opportunity.
Council could have just got on with the job instead of leaving the community waiting indefinitely. With community support and fundraising and heritage grants available it wouldn’t even cost a lot.
How much money has been spent so far on the tendering process? Nothing is being spent on the maintenance or appearance of the building, but it seems a lot is being wasted on reports, legal fees and due diligence.
It is 18 months since BVSC effectively abandoned this prominent and important building yet the sign saying it is a BVSC restoration project is still attached to the front of the building giving a blatantly untrue picture.
Those councillors who were against BVSC doing the restoration should be aware that the community feels that leaving the building in its current state shows a cavalier disregard for local people and for heritage.
Amanda Midlam, Eden
Effective hoodwinking
I am writing in response to Harriett Swift (Letters, 22/2). The Regional Forest Agreement meetings were just another opportunity for her to promote her ongoing, turn all state forests to national parks, campaign.
South East Timber Association admits Harriett's and the multimillion dollar environmental charity campaigns over the past 30 years have been effective in hoodwinking the public into supporting their campaigns.
The campaigns have been effective by:
1. Having the general public believe that harvesting a decreasing percentage of the native forest estate is the biggest threat to biodiversity conservation in Australia.
2. Shift more and more of the impact of Australia's forests product consumption offshore, often to countries with lower environmental protection standards, without the public or politicians questioning the morality of this outcome.
3. Having the general public think most public native forests are still available for timber harvesting, when only 20 per cent of public forested land remains in state forests and a small percentage harvested each year.
4. Having the general public think creating national parks saves the government money, when it actually costs more per hectare to manage parks than to fund any state forest revenue shortfall.
5. Having the public believe changing land tenure from state forests to national parks creates tourism jobs, to more than replace jobs lost in the timber industry. Time and time again new parks have resulted in net job losses.
6. Not having to explain why there was more koala activity in "woodchipped" state forests than adjoining national parks.
7. Not having to explain why threatened species were captured from the forests of Eden, that Harriett and Chipstop claim to have been ravaged by the woodchip industry, to repopulate Booderee National Park.
Harriett, SETA agrees with you that the media should not ignore your campaign of controversy. However, what SETA would like the media to do is understand some of the perverse outcomes your 100 per cent national parks campaign will deliver to biodiversity and local communities.