The Goulburn Group in favour of this DA

[paulgraftonst]

Hi all , The Goulburn Group (TGG) are a group of locals claiming to be in favour of sustainable envronmental development in Goulburn yet a spokeman for them a Mr Urs Walterlin wrote a letter to the mayor unconditionally supporting the waste transfer station development on the banks of the river, I have just written to them expressing my dissapointment....as follows..

Dear TGG,

I would sincerely hope Urs Walterlin's letter to the mayor giving TGG's unconditional
support for Dival's proposed waste transfer station on the banks of the Mulwaree River was some sort of mistake
and does not reflect the view of your entire group.

I would have thought that TGG being concerned with environment and also planning would
see that any new waste transfer station should be be placed at the current tip site.

Locating Goulburn's waste on the riverbank is ridiculous and if TGG support this
then one would have to question TGG's motives.

Urs stated that "our experts came to the conclusion that the Goulburn Resource Transfer Station as planned
poses no threat to the surrounding environment"

All I can say is TGG's experts did not consider the residents close to the site as part of that environment.

There are houses as close as 50 m from the site....ours is about 250m, instead of seeing
trees, we will see a huge colourbond castle and experience noise and odour 7 days a week.


NSW Dept health has also written a letter of objection to the project on the grounds of potential for
dust and odour emission, these dusts could contain pollutants including asbestos.

There is a child minding centre 200m away, Goulburn North school about 300m, both objected to the proposal.

How can The Goulburn Group see this as "sustainable environmental development"

Paul Alessi
140 Grafton St.

[steve]

After Paul wrote this I was told by a credible source that according an insider in The Goulburn Group, Andy Divall is funding 50% of the wetlands project....

When I told Paul, his reply was, "Now, why doesn't that surprise me.."

And I don't think it will come as a surprise to many other people in Goulburn either.

What bothers me is all these connections and deals which need to be put out in the open if the people of Goulburn are going to ever have a representative government. The word "transparency" is only part of the propaganda and manufactured consent coming out of those in positions of power.

My disillusionment continues to rise with those connected to the local council and the Divalls, but my faith in people like Paul also continues to rise.

As I have said many times, the people in Goulburn are good people. They need and deserve good leadership.

[tgg]

Hi

First I want to congratulate you for being active in this community. As a community action group we are doing exactly the same.

Having said that, it is rather important that you stick to the facts. It is sad that you are spreading information that is simply false. Or do you have the facts supporting them?

First: TGG does not support the project "unconditionally" but "wholeheartedly" as outlined in our letter to the Mayor. Big difference.

Secondly: where do you have this nonsense from that Andy Divall is funding "50% of the Wetlands project"? Name your "insider", and then we can talk. Because he or she is wrong. Andy funding this project - that would be lovely, because then we would not have to go from department to department begging for funds. Nothing could be further from the truth. The project is a cooperation between several groups and the Council. Divalls is one of the contractors that is working on the site - and they are getting paid for it.

It might come as a surprise to you that it was in fact one of you, one of the staunchest opponents of this project, who asked us to look into the proposal in the first place. This person was concerned that it could have a negative impact on the Wetlands project.
As a community action group we did take his concern seriously, very seriously. And so we went to work. TGG is lucky and proud to have in its midst experts with decades of experience in science and conservation and natural resource management. These guys are extremely strict and thorough – for good reason. As one of them put it to me recently: “Much of my 40 years in the conservation game has been spent analysing and countering the arguments and schemes of land developers and charlatans”. They have spent hours questioning the proponents of this project and analysing all available data. Finally they came to the conclusion that the Goulburn Resource Transfer Station - as proposed - poses no threat to the surrounding environment, including the wetlands. On the other hand it will significantly reduce the environmental footprint when it comes to the disposal of waste and recyclable materials in the Goulburn region. As these stations already do in many other towns.

This is what we told our council.

If neighbours have an issue with the proposed location of the station they should take their concerns to the council or any other government body that might have the power to do something about it. To attack a community group, volunteers who spend hours for the benefit of this beautiful region, is neither a smart nor a sensible way of achieving positive change.

Urs Walterlin
The Goulburn Group (TGG)
goulburngroup.com.au

[steve]

Thank you for joining our forum, Urs.

I hope we can have a productive dialogue.

I am sorry Paul incorrectly referred to the support as "unconditional." Thank you for pointing that out.

I would also like to clarify some things.

First is that as far as I know, no one representing the North Goulburn Action Group said that Andy's project would affect the Wetlands from an environmental standpoint. We realize your project is upstream from his.

Our concern is primarily that his project goes against most of the goals of TGG, but in particular the goal of enhancing the image of Goulburn as an "innovative, forward thinking, progressive, and attractive place to live work and do business."

We believe that quite the contrary to that, Andy's project will be, simply put, an embarrassment to Goulburn and Australia if it is put on the proposed riverbank location.

As for the insider, we are attempting to contact him to confirm or deny what he was reported to have said. Personally, I believe our source to be credible. Perhaps there was some misunderstanding, though.

Thank you for stating that TGG is paying Andy for the work he is doing. I personally have mixed feelings about that. I am mostly confused because I remember seeing on a PDF which I downloaded from Council that Andy was one of your supporters, so I was not at all surprised when I saw evidence they were doing work. I assumed they were doing work as an in-kind donation. I have other thoughts and feelings but I will leave them for later.

Several people, including myself, felt quite skeptical when the following picture was provided to them:

goulburn.9k.com/tgg_conflict.htm

Now I have edited that page to reflect your post here.

BTW the words I quoted about wanting to make Goulburn an attractive place etc. are from a flyer I picked up in the Council lobby around June or July. The flyer had the TGG logo on it. I have a picture of that flyer which I will post when I dig it up.

Also, I want to emphasize that I, and I believe many of those I have spoken to over the past few months, share many of the basic philosophical ideas and ideals as TGG.

I will admit that I feel cynical at this point, but in any case, I do support the ideals such as bringing more direct democracy into Goulburn.

On that point, Council has absolutely not been doing a satisfactory job. They have not even been doing a satisfactory job of representative democracy, nor living up to their own stated values, such as being proactive in involving the community where there is a "substantial divergence of views"

See this photo from Council

goulburn.9k.com/council_values.htm

Rather than being "proactive," Council has not even been sufficiently "reactive."

Let me explain that.

I personally presented the Mayor with the following data:

A) Over 90% of people randomly polled had no idea what was being planned in terms of changes to waste management and

B) Once informed of the location for Andy's waste station, were immediately against it.

Even children have the common sense and intuition that you don't put something like that by the river.

In any case, although this information was presented to the mayor, and the Goulburn Post reported in an early story that this issue has divided the community, Council took absolutely no further action to inform or consult the people - unless you can say that hiring an independent consultant to try to create the image that Council are simply neutral parties in this deal, was further action.

Personally I don't see how that accomplished anything. As far as I know, no one except Council knew who this consultant was, no one had the chance to give input. So how is that in any way "transparency" -- another of Council's stated lofty values.

But to continue...

My talks with Mayor Kettle were after the July 18th open forum, so again I say, nothing further was done to consult, inform and involve the people.

Even that forum, intended to make Council appear to be listening to the people, was very poorly publicized in advance. The people who attended were mostly there because a few neighbors, only those who had already lodged submissions, had heard about it and had personally told others.

I was told that of the 40 or so residents there, only 2 had received a notice of the forum from Council. Again, to my knowledge, not one person was there because they had heard about it from the paper --- or from the Council website.

Importantly, the Council has also never posted one single word about this on their site as far as I can see, with the exception of the actually DA itself.

Please correct me if you know otherwise.

Another side note is that it seems less than 10 people received the original notification of the DA. Let me stress that... less than 10.

I'd be interested to know how satisfied you are with the job Council has done in this regard.

In any case, the editor of the Post, Gerard Walsh, told me and two others when we met with him, that Council not only did not issue a media release about the July 18th forum, they have not issued ANY media releases regarding this issue.

I believe this is intentional. I believe they wanted it go to through as quickly and quietly as possible. What do you think, given this information?

If it is not intentional, then I would suggest it is, as your website says, "lazy thinking" as well as lazy behavior. Council is simply not motivated to inform, involve and listen to the people on this issue. And anyone who cares about the people living in Goulburn should question why they are not.

And how well do you personally think they did as far as living up to their own stated value of being "proactive"?

It is crystal clear to those of us who have actually spoken to many residents, not just Andy's friends and associates, that the majority, and I think it is fair to say, vast majority of the people of Goulburn do not want Andy's project in that location. So where is the democracy, of any form?

Perhaps you have also heard the term, "democratic dictatorship..." More than one resident has told me that is what the Goulburn Council is.

But back to the location of Andy's waste processing, money making scheme....and I must say it is quite a good scheme, but absolutely the wrong location. I heard, it should be mentioned, that he wanted to bring super phosphate in by train there once. And those plans fell through. So it seems he was looking for something else to do with his land.

The location is the single most controversial issue, though now after closer examination we are even more worried about other issues as well.

I would like to suggest that the reputation of TGG will be improved if you were to make it clear that you would support the project in another location, but not in the present one.

Just because your group does not see any environmental risk, does not make that location an ideal one.

Nor does it make putting a waste center there the best possible use of that land.

I would also ask you to comment on the idea of expanding existing paths and to comment on the effect Andy's project will have on the large, currently tranquil, green space on the other side of the river, just opposite his site.

For example, I am concerned about the beep beep beep of back up alarms and the possible sound of crushing concrete.

Overall, I cannot see how putting a waste processing center in that location will in any way enhance the image of Goulburn, especially when compared to other possible locations, of which Goulburn has many.

Just because the Divalls own it and it is on the train line, does not make it the ideal location for *Goulburn*.

On the other hand, beautifying that area and connecting it to existing paths, *would* clearly enhance Goulburn's image, as well as be a boost for tourism and help bring more treechangers to the area.

Would you agree that treechangers, as well as most people, want to see nature when they walk or cycle along a river? Isn't it fair to assume they don't want to see, smell and hear a waste processing center?

By the way, the tourist information people had not been made aware of Andy's, and I will say, Council's plan, until I personally informed them.

This was the same case with several hotel owners, including the Parkhaven Hotel and The Lilac City Motor Inn.

I invite you to survey those in the tourism industry and ask them which they would give their support to for that location, waste or green space.

To leave them out of this decision making process is about as far from direct democracy as one could get, I'd say. They will be directly impacted by the loss of a potential tourism gold mine.

I invite you to explain your thoughts on why that location is a good one as compared to, for example, out by the existing tip.

I understand that Council purchased land on the corner there for an intended waste transfer station, but they have now sold that land.

We don't understand why a waste transfer station couldn't be put on the existing land owned by Council either. And we have not gotten good answers.

Your website says this,

TGG is a vehicle through which local people can:


"Ask questions & get reliable answers on issues that matter."

This is also what we have been trying to do.

I truly hope we can reach some common agreement here and help Andy and the Goulburn Council see that to do the right thing for Goulburn, they must re-locate their waste centre.

Thanks.

Steve

[steve]

I chatted with David Marsden-Ballard a couple of times on Facebook.

David is one of the key members of TGG. I was given his name by a good friend of mine, Jony Lewis. Jony told me that David would be the guy to talk to and that he was interersted in the environment etc.

From my chats with David, it seemed he wasn't too keen on Andy's location for his waste scheme.

David was telling me that weather patterns are changing and there is probably more chance of extreme floods in the next 10 or 20 years than in the past.

I had hoped to meet with him face to face, but that never worked out.

Later I sent David a Facebook message and asked him if he knew that Urs Waterlin had sent the mayor a letter of strong support for Andy's DA.

Here are quotes from his reply...

Yes I knew. I and the wetlands experts met with Divall's management, closely examined all the proposal...

Then David said that Andy had answered all their questions to his satisfaction.

Then he said this:

There are very good environmental reasons for their choice of this site, which I agree with.

I was thinking of writing back to David and asking him what those reasons were, but I decided to post the question here instead.

The last time I wrote to David he didn't write back. So I am a little afraid he won't write back again. I don't feel as skeptical and cynical about David, or let's say, as resentful, since David did spend some time talking with me directly, and he seemed more interested in hearing what I had to say.

I will give David the benefit of the doubt and say that he probably was simply too busy -- like everyone else it seems, unfortunately. Everyone is too busy to keep up with and fight Andy, Peter, Margaret and the Council's shenanigans.

But back to my main point. I would like to hear what David or anyone else from TGG' thinks are the "good environmental reasons" for putting the waste center next to the river.

I personally think the good reasons are economic, not environmental. More specifically I think Andy wants to bring in waste from Sydney by train and process it on that location.

I have said this many times now and no one from his group has addressed it.

In the July 18th forum at Council, Peter Walker tried to "assure" us that they weren't going to be bringing waste in from outside Goulburn, but not many of us felt assured. I believe I speak for most of the people who oppose this scheme when I saw we felt distrusting.

Trust is an important issue by the way. I will say a bit more about that now since I am thinking of it

Stella Friend, the only resident on "Bridge Street" spoke out publicly at the JRPP briefing on Friday the 28th. She told everyone there what she has been telling me:

That Andy Divall told her there would be just two trucks a day, coming in, loading up and going out.

On that point alone, I would ask the Goulburn community if they can put their trust in Andy to handle something as important, and risky, as the town's waste.

And I would ask the community to think about what his motives are.

Is he primarily interested in helping Endeavour Industries?

Is he primarily interested in helping the community?

What are his main motives? And, who benefits?

Another issue of trust is the misleading map which Paul has written about on this forum. And there are more issues of trust and integrity.

It is surprising to me that Andy would risk his hard earned reputation like this. I really don't understand.

In any case, I personally would not trust Andy to always "do the right thing" for Goulburn.

As Kevin Watchirs pointed out in the JRPP meeting, even in the past Andy has not always been perfect. Kevin pointed to the infamous incinerator plan which was going to burn all of Sydney's waste, as I understand it.

Council, including then Mayor Paul Stephenson and then Assistant City Manager Chris Berry were active and vocal about opposing that plan, as documented in the Goulburn Post.

Later I may add the link to copies of those articles.

But for now I trust I have given people more food for thought and more questions which need to be answered.