A country drive & a council meeting at Pomona

Very occasionally Noosa Council gets into the hinterland and convenes a meeting at one of the pretty townships that are scattered around the rural areas of the shire. Such was the case for the last ordinary meeting which was held on a lovely evening at former timber town Pomona, the first administrative centre of the shire at the time it was established in 1910.

On the drive to Pomona I noticed that the notoriously highly trafficked thoroughfare of Beckmans Road had gained many potholes. I believe this is a Queensland government responsibility that we must put up with and it is a challenge that independent State MP Sandy Bolton needs to address.

An interesting pre-meeting conversation

Before the council’s ordinary meeting began (it’s called ‘ordinary’ but it is the final decision-making forum), I had a brief discussion with the popular Kerri Contini who has been promoted to Community Services Director replacing the charming Alan (Fox) Rogers – always civil to me, which is more than I can say for some councillors – who is retiring after a distinguished career.

I also had a long discussion with Cr Jess Glasgow who said he’d been advised to bide his time before assuming greater council responsibilities but believes he’s a certainty to be re-elected at the March 2020 poll. He expressed surprised that there’s no-one apart from Brendan Weatherill openly advocating for the mayoralty – but it’s early days yet. Deputy Mayor Frank Wilkie, former State MP Glen Elmes and of course incumbent Tony Wellington are all being broadcast as likely contenders.

Cr Glasgow also says Cr Ingrid Jackson will “definitely stand for mayor”, which I understand is a total misread. The only woman on Noosa Council has had to deal with an often pushy ‘boys club’ and, despite a number of successes in edging the council towards more progressive thinking, may not run a second time for any position.

The meeting commenced at 6pm with a reasonable roll-up of about 30 locals in the gallery and Cr Wellington in the chair. Deputy Mayor and amateur thespian Cr Frank Wilkie had prioritised treading the boards at a dress rehearsal with the local drama society, conveying apologies for his non-appearance.

An unnecessary petition & an unnecessary welcome zone

When petitions were called, Cr Brian Stockwell presented one on behalf of 1,250 petitioners who wanted to change a driveway on a Cooroy unit development to save a mango tree which apparently delivers inedible fruit. Be that as it may, the petition was redundant as the council had already decided to make the change. I thought at the time that this was parish politics at its worst as the driveway will now exit to a busier road and there will be safety concerns.

Mayor Wellington then moved that the council officially agree to make the shire a refugee welcome zone. Cr Ingrid Jackson said the initiative was noble and humanitarian and told of her family’s experience at the hands of the Nazis in World War II and of her grandfather’s death in a concentration camp. He had been a councillor. Her father, a mathematician, was also interned but had survived and after the war was accepted as a migrant to Australia.

Cr Joe Jurisevic said his family was decimated in World War II and his mother harshly treated in a concentration camp before his parents migrated to Australia in 1951. He said persecuted refugees do assimilate and that he was very pleased with this council policy. Cr Stockwell, who did not want to be left out, read a prepared speech and said the council’s action was a social charter of compassion and caring. (I’m sorry if I offend anyone but I think there is no need for Noosa to be a refugee welcome zone. And we oldies all have refugee stories.)

More on the threat posed by the Noosa River

I have written twice previously on the threat to property worth a quarter of a billion dollars should the Noosa River break through the sand spit designed to keep its mouth contained to the north and which protects against the possible inundation of Noosa Sound. Council staff attested at an earlier meeting that a major storm or cyclone could trigger such a dramatic outcome.

The council responded by agreeing to get on with a shoreline erosion management plan that will take six to nine months to complete. Picking up on this, Cr Jackson had some questions to ask which were dealt with by the council’s infrastructure director who explained that, in May 2012 before de-amalgamation, the Sunshine Coast Council had performed remedial work on the foreshore, deploying rock groynes and geotextile bags at Dog Beach. But not all the rock groynes had been constructed by the time of de-amalgamation and work did not recommence under the new council. (If the director had told the full story it would have included the strong opposition to this work by Noosa Parks Association, which stopped remediation in its tracks.)

The director said the breakthrough of the spit to Noosa Sound was progressing at 10-15 metres a year and said that, at its narrowest point, the spit was now just 45 metres across – 30 metres of bushland and 15 metres of low level scrub. He added that tropical cyclone Debbie had caused faster erosion, which made clear to us what may well happen if there’s another similar high intensity storm.

Cr Jackson said she was concerned about Noosa Sound, which was built on a reclaimed mangrove swamp and now protected by the spit. When the river mouth was diverted there had been many changes to channels which required continual control measures. In the gallery, the full weight of this issue was descending on me.

As the staff director responded to this, my heart sank. First, I thought, this is going to be expensive, so we can kiss goodbye to many other infrastructure projects including those in the hinterland. Second, it’s great to have a plan but it seemed it would be a year from now before we see any work started on what could turn out, with just one major storm at any time, to be a disastrous problem.

Cr Wellington entered the discussion saying he supported the motion but Noosa Sound was formed before the spit and was in no danger. I admired his confidence in an environment which may now be subject to some of the extremes of climate change. He said the council back in the day had extended the spit to prevent wave action impacting Noosa Sound and repeated his opinion that he was not worried about the prospect of damage to it. Cr Pardon was not so sure about this and responded that he remembered the cyclone of 1974 when waves ploughed up Noosa River and crashed into the Noosa Sound foreshore. He said any breakthrough of the spit could magnify quickly.

The motion to approve the preparation of a shoreline erosion management plan passed unanimously and now it’s just a matter of seeing what will happen first – the finalisation of the plan or a breakthrough of the Noosa Spit.

Reflecting on this council meeting at Pomona

The meeting extended for two hours with much of that time expended on a backpacker’s hostel in Mary Street, Noosaville, during which the councillors turned into planning experts and largely made fools of themselves. Why are councillors so ready to change perfectly good and compliant staff recommendations? They seem to change the town plan at will and at some other time will aggressively oppose some unfortunate proponent who in seeking to do likewise. In this debate Cr Stockwell’s amendments got totally out of control. He truly seems to consider himself some sort of design guru.

So this one took time to resolve but, overall, most items – and there were many more at this meeting than I have the space to canvass here – were rubber stamped.

The shoreline erosion management plan, the one we may see this time next year, is a major concern. The likelihood of a high intensity storm signals urgency that, full credit to them, Crs Jackson and Pardon pointed to, but was dismissed by the mayor, ignored by the council at large and now seems to having taken the form of a lottery. Noosa Sound residents win if there’s not a major storm over the next year or two.

I think the refugee welcome zone is a ploy to infuse some good intentions which don’t actually mean anything because they end only with the utterance of sweet words.

The Cooroy unit development was another development application I believe should not have been changed. It seemed Cr Stockwell used locals to sign a petition that may help his cause for ultimate re-election. But the driveway exit should have remained where the staff recommended on Wattle Street and the mango tree should have been replanted elsewhere if it was as precious and its fruit as edible as some people believed.