Mood:
smellyTopic: local news
We understand from a source that the Acting GM Peter Talmacs has resigned effective this Friday 1st February.
Apparently Yvette Andrews, ex ALP staffer to Meredith Burgman, co author of The Ernies book, the current honorary President will not be going to work for Senator Faulkner after all but be taking the job at $65K p.a. of General Manager, for 6 months.
The previous GM resigned in Sept 07 from memory. So that's two big changes in 4 months.
We have also been on strike from our humble job there for 2 months and currently in discussion with the Australian Services Union about the place.
To lose one GM is unfortunate. To lose two looks like carelessness.
The role of Andrews is intriguing too, because how can you take a well paid job with a non profit organisation that you are on the governing board of to do the policy setting, without serious conflict of interest of the policy level to the staff level?
The place is nothing if not riddled with power games and jockeying for position and control. Our reportage of the gerrymandered AGM of Nov 28 07 below makes that quite clear.
We quite liked acting GM Talmacs and found him honest and quite efficient. Our feeling is he is too honest and we think his decision does him alot of credit and we wish him well.
Which is also why we think our time has run out there too after 4 years.
We have written alot about the history of the ARC this last year or so because it is the biggest community centre in Australia, it does have 3.4 ha of land in high value inner city with 45 years to go, and it is very much under potential:
Local ALP shuts down website of 'biggest community centre'?
Unauthorised newsletter Addison Rd Community Centre #3
Why is Addison Rd Centre failing to reach its potential?
'Ordinary Members' don't like successful Sunday Market at Addison Rd
More recently it's become clear that the ALP Left aristocracy
and fellow travellers have moved into annexe the ARC sans C in community, and shut down real democracy, at which time I realised I couldn't be working for these cronies much longer and avoid ongoing bullying or mistreatment even as a humble gardener and website builder. See:
which currently reads for 6 weeks now:
"Come back soon. We are just getting it better.
This Website is still under construction"
Apparently this writer is now being targeted with "misinformation" currently, the normal politics AO1 apocrophia symptomatic of ugly politics and the ALP Left, for daring to speak up about the place as is our democratic right. It is my community centre too and it belongs to the public interest. But it's taboo to talk about management and staffing and equitable leasing arrangements in case something 'bad' happens to you. So the place runs on Chinese whispers, snaky stares, emotional violence, and innuendo instead of transparent debate leading to honest and
transparent governance. Like all rental spaces on equal terms, not who
you know, or whether you've got the gerrymander at the AGM.
Anyway that's our professional advice, as a solicitor, and community activist 16 years. There is no doubt the ALP Left have alot to be worried about too as the $7 BILLION truck tunnel and smog stacks are likely approved in the next few weeks and the sleep walking people of Sydney realise that their health and amenity is about to be destroyed big time in an intensification of Port Botany all the way to Parramatta Rd, not least the seat of Grayndler covering Marrickville.
As we wrote on a crikey.com.au comment page recently - Gary Punch MP resigned for less (over the 3rd runway KSA impact on Sydney) from the federal ALP Govt in the 1980ies: More on this as extracted below from our SAM website
8. The NSW Govt machine is running a story that the $7 billion public private M4 East tunnel tollway with interchange "under Anandale in Sydney's Inner
West will go ahead in a short number of weeks. It' said to be a joint announcement between the Federal and State ALP Govt's, and dependent on $3B in funds from electricity privatisation as well as predicted toll revenues:$7bn missing link to be announced soon | The Australian
'Missing link' road will cost over $7bn | The Australian
Super ideal to provide funds for infrastructure | The Australian
If it is true, which we assume it is, it puts the lie to Kevin Rudd's main priority to tackle climate change because endless growth in container imports and export of empty ones which is driving the transport linkage to Port Botany, can only massively increase greenhouse gas embedded
production. As well making health and amenity hell for at least 1 million citizens in dormitory suburbs. In other words Kevin Rudd is effectively shown to be liar on climate change action he claims to be the priority this Australia Day weekend:This looks very much like:
Strong-arm tacticians Elisabeth Wynhausen THE meeting was in a room in the NSW Premier's Department. [The Australian 26th Jan 2008]
In particular
"The minister [Sartor] can declare a site to be "state-significant", giving developers the go-ahead on big projects. Under Part 3A of the
Environmental Planning and Assessment Act, projects that are objectively of state significance can go to the minister. Brad Hazard, the Opposition's planning spokesman, says of the Government's planning actions: "The reality is that anything Frank wants to get his hands on
to, he takes."In other words planning is under control of a modern Mussolini, making the development approvals 'train run on time' with no democracy and precious little justice. More detail on the Port Botany intensification impacts across Sydney here:
Friday, 18 January 2008It's a wholesale repudiation of the ALP's 1979 Planning Act checks and balances approach involving a political economic strategy of furious activity at any cost in any direction enriching a few and making the many miserable, in the blind hope that powerful vested interests in the Big Media and Business will like this NSW ALP Govt.
It's as if the Govt has given up on the very concept of good
governance, and that is quite tragic for us and them.
