HOW MUCH DEMOCRACY CAN WE AFFORD?

[STOP PRESS 290316

York residents still engaged in active opposition to SITA landfill

Please, everybody, watch this excellent video: https://youtu.be/d6q8tCvr_GQ

Then let your representatives in state and federal parliament know exactly what you think of the SAT decision in SITA’s favour and of the political cowardice and failure to act that made that decision possible.

This is our eleventh hour—but it may not be too late to turn the tide.

Mia, here’s your chance to redeem yourself in York’s eyes.  Don’t let it go to waste.]

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by Keith Schekkerman

[Reprinted by kind permission of the author from the Avon Valley Residents Association (AVRA) Newsletter, 17 March 2016.  Its appearance here is not to be interpreted as an endorsement by Mr. Schekkerman or AVRA of any opinion expressed at any time on this blog by the moderator or any other person.]

The AVRA committee is disappointed with the outcome of the State Administrative Tribunal (SAT) in the case between SITA/SUEZ and the Wheatbelt Joint Development Assessment Panel (JDAP). As you are aware, the proposal calls for the dumping of millions of tonnes of metropolitan waste on Allawuna Farm which is on the Chidlow/York Rd. The court ruled in favour of SITA/Suez and upheld the appeal, subject to some conditions. The rubbish tip can now go ahead.

This whole sorry case has shown that local Town Planning Schemes are worth little, as top drawer lawyers can pick holes in them at will and because of the current system Shires are unable to defend themselves. The State Government decided some time ago that Shires would be “assisted” in making decisions for projects that are worth over six million dollars. It instituted the JDAP system, where outside experts help to make the ‘final’ decision.

In this case, both the Shire and the JDAP rejected the plan twice. SITA/Suez appealed to the SAT who overruled everyone and approved the project principally because the JDAP defence was no match for the big budget legal representation afforded by SITA/SUEZ.

The will of the community and the Shire’s Town Planning Scheme, which does not permit this development, counted for nothing.

While the AVRA committee was upset by the decision, we were not altogether surprised. From the beginning, this whole regrettable saga has been marked by the repeated failure to act on the part of those that were and are in positions in which they could have been expected to represent the interests of the majority of people in York.

Early in the process, during the last state election campaign, the Premier Colin Barnett met with AVRA members and gave the undertaking that he would come to York and discuss the issue with us and that “Cabinet would deal with waste disposal before any decisions would be made”.

Guess what, he never got around to it and decisions were made. You might remember Colin Barnett’s stance on the Margaret River coalmine proposal. He pronounced that ‘it is not going to happen’ and that was the end of that.

  The Premier and Steven Strange, visiting York in 2013, where the above undertaking was given.

Our local member, the Hon Mia Davies, is also the Minister for Water. If she had been prepared to spend a little political capital, she could have vetoed this proposal with the stroke of a pen. We know that the DER came up with a computer model that appears to show that there was no hydrological connection between the proposed site and the Mundaring Catchment. However as the site is within a few hundred metres of the catchment, the precautionary principle should have been invoked to safeguard the catchment as well as the other waterways. Nobody knows if the area is connected as not enough fieldwork has taken place to prove it conclusively one way or the other. While we are aware of her stated opposition to the plan, her actions consisted of encouraging her colleagues to act, rather than act herself.

AVRA has a letter in file from the Minister for the Environment, the Hon Albert Jacob, in which he states that the landfill capacity on the coastal plain is sufficient until 2030. This 14 year time period would have given the Government the time to develop a comprehensive plan to deal with waste from the metro area and suitable locations for new landfills, if they so desired. The truth is that they are not interested! They keep trying to handball it on to the Waste Authority who, under their rules of engagement, use the Victorian Environmental guidelines on waste disposal, etc, in which they are tasked with identifying new sites. They have not done so and leave local Shires poorly equipped to defend against unwanted development.

Recently a letter came to light written in November 2013, from the Minister for Planning, the Hon John Day, to our local MLA Ms. Mia Davies. It talks about a range of planning matters to do with waste disposal, etc. and makes some sensible observations.

He goes on to write that “Subject to environmental and land use suitability, landfill sites should be adjacent to the region’s transport routes – the Great Eastern, Great Northern and Brand Highways. The Great Southern Highway, though technically a main road, may not be configured to handle the type of vehicles proposed, nor be an ideal entry point to WA’s first inland town of York”.

All this shows that our elected representatives know what needs to be done but nobody has the gumption to act. We are well aware of the political influence organisations like SITA/SUEZ can bring to bear and the manner in which financial contributions to political parties may influence their actions.

We invite you to contact the various political players mentioned and seek some answers for yourself. The only thing that will stop the Allawuna proposal now is a rethink on the part of our political representatives. Recent history has shown that all are more interested in the short electoral cycle of politics, rather than rocking the boat and representing the interests of their electors.

To demonstrate how insincere SITA/SUEZ is about this application, take into account the following. The modified and down sized second proposal reduced the volumes of rubbish and the lifespan of the operation to 20 years. When the SAT wanted to include this 20 years as a condition of operations, the company objected and the SAT caved in. What we have now is an unlimited landfill operation with further applications to follow that will expand the volume and variety of waste together with the attendant increase in the trucking traffic. In time the rubbish trucks will approach from the east as well, through the York town site.

The surrounding landholders now find themselves in the position of having their property values greatly reduced by the proximity of the tip, and their right to enjoy their property in peace is vastly compromised. Precedence has shown that there is little chance of recompense for this and that contamination, both literally and figuratively, has now been forced upon a community, in particular on those that live near the site. Whether this is real or perceived is of no consequence as perception is just as damaging, sometimes more so.

All in all the York Community has been let down badly by our elected representatives.  This whole exercise has been of little consequence to them, as there are just a handful of votes involved. Their inaction has been monumental.

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From the Facebook page Stop 40 Years of Perth Rubbish in York:

“The following suburbs and localities need to know that the water they drink, which comes from the Mundaring Weir may be seriously affected by the SITA landfill proposal.

The SITA Allawuna landfill site is located in the catchment area of the Mundaring Weir.

Please share and let your friends know if they live in Sawyers Valley, Chidlow, Wooroloo, Mundaring, Mount Helena, Stoneville, Parkerville, Mahogany Creek, Glen Forrest, Helena Valley, Darlington, Midvale, Bellevue, Swan View, Green Mount, Boya and Hovea.

Mundaring Weir also pumps water to all the communities in the Avon Arc, the wheatbelt and as far as Kalgoorlie.
Everyone needs to be aware of this proposal as it will affect us all.”

(https://www.facebook.com/Stop40YearsOfPerthRubbishInYork/ )

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OTHER BUSINESS - SHIRE WORKER POISONING AN INNOCENT TREE 

 (see comment 29/3 at 20:30)

(Photos courtesy of Beven Meredith)

 

BREAKING NEWS…

Council to review SAT’s decision on SITA’s landfill application

The following officer recommendation will go before Council at the Ordinary Council Meeting on 21 March 2016.

“That Council:

1. Receive the decision of the State Administrative Tribunal on the application for review of the Wheatbelt Joint Development Assessment Panel decision not to approve the construction and operation of a major waste management facility to be located on the Allawuna Farm in the Shire of York.

2. Await the comments of the Council’s legal advisor, Mr Denis McLeod, before determining a course of action.

3. Maintain a dialogue with other parties who oppose the decision of the State Administrative Tribunal."

 See pages 51-52 of the current agenda.

In backgrounding the recommendation, the agenda item states that 'The Shire has taken a firm line on this issue in support of the local community's view that the site is unsuitable and that the facility should not be established in that location'.

It seems likely, therefore, that subject to expert legal advice Council is considering the possibility of supporting an appeal in the Supreme Court against the Tribunal’s decision.  It does not have legal standing to launch one.

It will be interesting to see which way Cr Randell votes on the recommendation.

The meeting should provide an opportunity during Public Question Time for Ashworth Road residents to question Council about (a) any unauthorised uses of the Avon Waste truck depot and (b) any traffic and access problems arising or likely to arise from it.

If residents are concerned about hostility from Avon Waste employees, presumably they can submit questions in writing to Council and ask for their identities to be suppressed. 

Expect the Avon Waste cheer squad to turn out in force.  Opponents of the landfill and/or the truck depot should do the same.

POSTSCRIPT:  More Breaking News

Mia Davies on ABC radio this afternoon

Tune in to ABC 720 this afternoon at 5 pm to listen to Jane Marwick interviewing our local member of state parliament, Mia Davies MLA.

The interview will comprise a discussion of SAT’s decision on the SITA landfill.

I believe this will be an interactive program, allowing texts and comments from listeners.[ Note: I was wrong.  Jane invited listeners to send texts and comments after the interview had finished.]

This will give Mia a chance to make up lost ground with the electors of York.  Give her a go.  Both blogs have given her a bit of a roasting—especially the other one—but it’s time to welcome her (belated) expression of support.

What Mia said…

Here are some of the points Mia made during the interview.

She has had concerns about SITA’s proposed landfill from the beginning and expressed them to SITA.  (A pity she didn’t express them to us, her constituents).

‘From day dot’ she has worried about the state of the Great Southern Highway and the threat to traffic posed by the projected landfill.  She will press for upgrades to the highway, which at present is not suitable for the volume and type of traffic it is going to have to accommodate.

She is aware of environmental concerns regarding possible seepage of leachate into groundwater, but from her perspective as Minister for Water, she is, in her own words, ‘less nervous than the community’.

She thinks an appeal to the Supreme Court against SAT’s decision is unlikely, but objectors (as well, presumably, as SITA) will have the chance to appeal to the Minister for Planning against the conditions attached to the decision.

She claimed to have said from the beginning that Allawuna is not the right place for the tip.  She may have expressed this view to SITA, as she said, but I don’t recall her expressing it to her constituents, and I can’t find an early media release confirming that she did. 

At this point in the interview, I had the distinct impression that Mia might be suffering from a mild case of Pinocchio’s Proboscis, a medical condition common to politicians of all stripes as well as to other members of WA’s ruling elite.

Towards the end of the interview, Mia mentioned that the Wheatbelt generally seems likely to become the site of other landfills built to contain metropolitan waste.  She named Chittering and 
Toodyay as projected landfill sites.  

She said Wheatbelt residents might well regard the Allawuna landfill as ‘the thin end of the wedge’, giving rise to further applications.  In her view, government needs to develop ‘a more strategic and coordinated’ approach to waste disposal and she will be making representations to that effect.

I think Jane went too easy on Mia, but it was reassuring to know that Mia has always opposed the landfill, even if she forgot to tell us of her concerns until now.

Perhaps Jane should have prepared for the interview with a careful study of the blogs.

Robin Davies

Mia’s interview was followed by a telephone call from our own Robin Davies. She and Kay Davies were accredited interveners in the SAT process. 

Perhaps with the Roe 8 decision in mind, Robin pointed out that despite having received many submissions from local residents the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had declined to assess the environmental impact of the landfill, in particular the threat of groundwater contamination from leachate. 

(A similar failure of the EPA in relation to Roe 8 resulted in a successful appeal to the Supreme Court against SAT’s decision in that case.)

Robin reminded listeners that SITA had hospital contracts and might be bringing medical waste to Allawuna.  She complained that SITA had moved to prevent the admission into the tribunal of evidence obtained from the Department of Parks and Wildlife.  She agreed with Mia that the Great Southern Highway was unsuitable for heavy traffic flowing to and from the landfill.

Robin’s contribution was succinct and to the point.  I had the impression that she hasn’t abandoned the idea of a Supreme Court appeal.  She and Kay have fought the good fight valiantly on our behalf at every stage in the proceedings.    The good people of York owe them an enormous debt.

Chin up, everybody.  The game may not be over yet.  'Say not the struggle nought availeth...'

POSTPOSTSCRIPT: ‘Animal Crackers’ strikes again…and again…and again…

‘Animal Crackers’ is the name I’ve bestowed on the author of the ‘woof woof’ threats against our dogs that were published on this blog a few days ago.

The first part of the name indicates his likely position on the evolutionary scale.  The second part alludes to his mental state, expertly diagnosed according to criteria set out in the psychiatrist’s manual DSM-V.

 Mr. Crackers let me know he was upset because I hadn’t posted his most recent comments, of which there have been more than a few.  I had previously told him I would only post his comments if he subscribed his name to them. 

However, on this occasion I have decided to publish a representative sample of his work.  I may consider posting a further sample if he submits his comments under the soubriquet ‘Animal Crackers’. 

That’s quite a concession, Mr. Crackers, and you would be wise to take advantage of it.

I don’t know who you are, and now you’ve stopped threatening my dogs (thanks, Trevor) I doubt I’ll take the trouble to find out.  But you’ve told us a fair bit about yourself:

1.              You are an employee of Avon Waste or the partner of one.  You identify closely with your employer.

2.              You didn’t do well at school and probably left at the first opportunity.

3.              You have a propensity for violence and a short fuse.  If you haven’t already done so, you should sign up for a course in anger management.

4.              You have contempt for women, especially if they disagree with you.

5.              You have more than once been in trouble with the police and may have a criminal record.

6.              You are friendly with Cr Randell.

There you are, Mr. Crackers—how did I do?

 
POSTPOSTPOSTSCRIPT: More breaking news...

Words fail me...for now.

FURTHER INFORMATION FROM DER WEBSITE  (Posted 240316)

https://www.der.wa.gov.au/our-work/consultation/69-closed-consultations/260-allawuna-farm-landfill-works-approval-application-closes-1-june-2015

Allawuna Farm Landfill works approval application

On 17 March 2016 DER determined to grant works approval W5830/2015/1 to SITA Australia Pty Ltd for the construction of a Class II Putrescible Landfill and associated infrastructure at Allawuna Farm Landfill located on part of Lot 5869 on Plan 224502.

DER’s decision to grant works approval W5830/2015/1 was advertised in The West Australian on 21 March 2016 and will be advertised in the Hills Gazette on 25 March 2016. DER is also writing to all persons who made a submission on the works approval application to notify them of the decision.

Anyone who disagrees with conditions specified in the works approval may lodge an appeal with the Appeals Convenor, within 21 days of the applicant being formally notified of the works approval conditions. Appeals cannot be lodged against the decision to grant the works approval.

.

Documents

Granted Works Approval W5830/2015/1

Decision Document

Supplementary Information (not previously uploaded to website)

Chemical Storage and Spill Management Plan

Series of management plans and responses to information requested by DER on 17 June 2015 which includes:

• Vermin Management Plan;
• Litter Management Plan;
• Asbestos Management Plan;
• Waste Acceptance Manual;
• Odour Management Plan;
• Dust Management Plan; and
• Noise Management Plan.

Series of management plans and responses to information requested by DER on 20 July 2015 which includes:

• Landfill Construction Management Plan Guidelines;
• Leachate Management Plan;
• Cross-sections of Local Geology.
• Updated Noise Management Plan (29/7/15)
• Updated Noise Assessment to Address Operational Hours

 

 

AT LAST, HERE COME THE BARBARIANS…

In an article entitled Waiting for the Barbarians, posted here on 18 June 2015, I suggested that the suspension of Council in January of that year might have had something to do with the desire of the state government to see SITA succeed in its plans to establish a dump for metropolitan rubbish in York.

Well, SITA has now succeeded in having those plans approved.

Western Australia’s first inland settlement, established in 1831, is all set to become the site of a dump for Perth’s rubbish over at least the next 20 years.

Yesterday, after nearly four months of deliberation, the State Administrative Tribunal handed down its verdict in the appeal of SITA Australia Pty Ltd against the Wheatbelt Joint Development Assessment Panel’s decision to reject the development of a ‘landfill’ at Allawuna Farm.  

Allawuna Farm is (or rather was) the property of Ann and Robert Chester.  Mrs Chester is a former Shire of York councillor.  Mr. Chester’s reputation, deservedly or not, nowadays revolves around a shaggy dog story involving a loaded firearm and a hapless trespasser on his land.

The Chesters were for a long time close friends with former Shire of York CEO Ray Hooper.  It is said that Mrs Chester, as a councillor, was instrumental in ensuring Mr. Hooper’s inclusion in the short list for the job.  The rest, as they say, is history.

I’m surprised the Tribunal took so long to make up its collective mind.   The verdict was a foregone conclusion.   SITA was always going to win.

So how has this happened, and why?

As planning lawyer Denis McLeod argued eloquently several years ago (https://leafysuburbs.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/mcleods-local-government-forum-8-10-09-daps-in-wa.pdf), the system under which SAT operates in relation to planning appeals reflects state government policy in being strongly weighted in favour of developers.

In this case, as I have argued consistently since December 2014, more was at stake than meets the eye.

There can be little doubt that the state government has from the outset encouraged and supported SITA’s application.  For sound environmental reasons, it can no longer allow the installation of landfills on the Perth coastal plain. 

But Perth’s rubbish has to go somewhere.  Where better than to the Wheatbelt, which is close to Perth and has a shrinking, ageing, relatively poor (and relatively poorly educated) population? 

Surely, the government would have opined, those clodhoppers will be grateful for any chance of economic development that might encourage their young people to stay put rather than head off at the first opportunity to the fleshpots and meth labs of Perth.

It must have been a severe shock both to the state government and SITA that far from grovelling in gratitude, in November 2012 the despised inhabitants of York rejected SITA’s landfill proposal at a public meeting in the Town Hall by a margin of hundreds of votes to one. 

It must have been shocking, too, to the highly unpopular CEO Ray Hooper, who had made no secret of his support for the proposed landfill and may have helped the idea along by drawing SITA’s attention to his friends’ farm-for-sale, Allawuna, as a possible site for the development. 

We know with certainty that CEO Hooper, then planning officer Jacky Jurmann, and Councillors Tony Boyle, Pat Hooper and Mark Duperouzel, were secretly negotiating with SITA for several months before the York community at large had the faintest idea that a landfill was, so to speak, in the wind (a phrase that, given the odoriferous tendencies of landfills, may well return to haunt us).

In October 2013, desiring to stamp out corruption and undue influence in the Shire, and to strengthen community opposition to SITA’s proposal, York's inhabitants in a record turnout voted for a respected local pharmacist, Matthew Reid, to take a seat on the Shire Council. 

Cr Reid quickly established himself as Shire President and a leading opponent of the landfill. In this, as in his failed attempts to reform the Shire administration, he continued to enjoy overwhelming community support.

In April 2014, facing the threat of an investigation into his stewardship of the Shire—in particular, his use of a corporate credit card—Ray Hooper, perhaps misjudging his moment, resigned from the position of CEO. 

Shire President Reid battled bravely on, encountering stubborn resistance to his reform plans from senior figures in the shire administration as well as their allies among his fellow councillors.   Those worthies colluded with the minister for local government, Tony Simpson, and senior bureaucrats in his department to have the council suspended. 

The process of suspension was an outrageous sham, but it served the Barnett government, SITA and their respective landfill aspirations nicely.  Former South Perth mayor James Best, the individual Tony Simpson appointed as York’s commissioner, received specific instructions to ‘calm’ the local population.

In this task Commissioner Best failed miserably, though he did succeed willy-nilly in displacing the community’s aggravation on to other matters, namely rate increases and the Shire’s purchase of an overpriced and derelict building from a couple of his friends and admirers in York.

Mia Culpa and Incapacity Brown

So what of our local representatives in state parliament, the National Party’s Mia Davies MLA and Paul Brown MLC?  What did they do to help the electors of York in their hour of greatest need?

The answer is: Nothing.  For this breach of trust and dereliction of duty, Mia, as a government minister, is the more to blame.  She couldn’t even be bothered to show up at, let alone address, public meetings called to consider the landfill or any other question vexing the people of York.  Paul did turn up to a couple of meetings, though I don’t recall him saying or doing anything of actual consequence.

Labor in vain

To his eternal shame, the ALP shadow minister for local government, David Templeman, though fully informed of what was happening, did nothing at all to question or oppose it in Parliament or anywhere else. 

It took me quite a while to figure out why.  The truth appears to be that the state opposition is no less wedded to the idea of a landfill in the Avon Valley than is the Barnett government. 

In the past, I’ve raised the possibility that SITA may be a generous contributor, through various individuals or subsidiary companies, to the coffers of all three major parties, or to the election war chest of leading state politicians.  Unfortunately, that’s not something I have the investigative skills to confirm, so I’ll say no more about it.  Perhaps my esteemed colleague David Taylor from the other blog would like to run with that one.

The judgement—was it leaked?

You can find the full text of SAT’s judgement at http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/wa/WASAT/2016/22.html

It is 49 pages long.  I’ll have something to say about the details of it in a later post.  For the moment, I want to raise an issue some of you may find disturbing, as I do—the distinct possibility that the verdict was leaked to SITA and its associate Avon Waste in advance of its publication to the rest of us.

In fact, it seems possible that SITA received assurance of victory even before the parties had finished presenting their arguments to the Tribunal.

So I’ll finish with a few questions that in my view go to the integrity of the SAT process and its freedom, or supposed freedom, from executive interference.

1.              Is it true that SITA completed its purchase of Allawuna last week, several days before the verdict was delivered and other parties notified, by handing over to the Chesters a cheque rumoured to be for around $6.4 million? (Bear in mind that the purchase would have been conditional on the granting of permission to develop.)

2.              Is it true, as indicated in a comment on this blog by ‘Ear to the ground’ on 1 March 2016, that the proposed redevelopment of BP’s service station at The Lakes is connected with a projected increase in heavy traffic along the Great Southern Highway to York?

3.              Is it true, as indicated in an anonymous comment on this blog on 2 March 2016, that SITA had by then already released construction plans for the Allawuna landfill for the purpose of obtaining trade quotations?

4.              Is it true that Avon Waste’s relocation of its transport depot to Ashworth Road, approved by Council in October of last year, was prompted by SITA as part of an agreement to take over Avon Waste—and if so, will current Avon Waste employees continue in employment under the new management?

5.              Finally—are we in for any more nasty surprises?

"Well, somebody's laughing!"

POSTSCRIPT:  Mia comes to the party at last—but has her invitation expired?

Don’t you just love our politicians?

Three years of struggle—blood and guts all over the field—and just as the good guys are experiencing the sour taste of undeserved defeat, and the bad guys are gloating and dancing to victory’s tune, up pops Mia, smiling brightly and making the kinds of noises she should have been making ever since the war began.

Everything Mia says in her media release about the landfill’s threat to traffic and the lack of a proper and effective plan to deal with Perth’s mounting rubbish problem is true.   If only she had spoken out before, when the world needed to hear what she’s waited so long to say, and it might have done the people of York some good!

Maybe it’s not too late, though.  There is word on the street concerning a possible appeal.  Stick around, Mia, fight York’s corner, and in time we might forgive you.  We might even vote for you again.  But if there is an appeal, and this time victory goes to the people of York, please don't go claiming all the credit for it.  Even for a politician, that would be very bad form.

(Click to enlarge)

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POSTPOSTSCRIPT:  A serious problem of bullying in York

The comments displayed below were submitted for posting over the past couple of days, while the missus and I were whooping it up in sunny Albany.

My usual practice for some time has been to send such comments straight to the spam folder, as some of you have advised me to do.  But these comments are in a way so revealing that I felt I ought to share them.

They point to a serious problem of bullying in York.  They also hint at corruption.  Honest people going honestly about their business don’t have to instruct employees and others to threaten critics in the hope—a forlorn one in this case—of shutting those critics up.

So not only have I posted the comments as items in the unfolding thread of discussion regarding Avon Waste and Ashworth Road, I’ve also decided to give them prominence in this, a section of their own.

The first comment is strikingly different from the rest.  To begin with, it is literate.  The spelling is accurate and the threat it contains, while clear enough, is quite subtly expressed. The author has clearly enjoyed a better than average secondary education, possibly at an independent school. 

Anonymous14 March 2016 at 05:26

Maybe SITA are responsible for the distribution of Metaldehyde, highly toxic to dogs.

The author seems to have a grasp of basic agricultural chemistry.  Metaldehyde, the active constituent of most snail pellets, is correctly described as being ‘highly toxic to dogs’.  (It’s also toxic to children, fish, worms, maggots and bullies involved at all levels in the waste disposal industry.)

There’s an obvious link between the first comment and those that followed it.  The threat in all of them is like that in the first, though there isn’t the same impression of a sophisticated literary mind at work. 

Anonymous14 March 2016 at 17:01

How are your dogs james, okay? Got any slug pellets in the garden have you?

Anonymous14 March 2016 at 18:15

come on you piece of shit print the comments hows the fence okay is it dogs okay are they

Anonymous14 March 2016 at 18:45

yer dogs are inbreds must go

Anonymous14 March 2016 at 21:38

ye ashworth road so fucking what woof woof weres my posts

Anonymous14 March 2016 at 22:33

what no post loser loser you lost trevs a local people like him woof woof

Anonymous15 March 2016 at 03:05

woof woof woof woof

My guess is that the author of the first comment stands in some kind of supervisory relationship with the author or authors of the rest and told them more or less what to write, but not how to write it.

One thing that stands out in the penultimate comment is the author’s touching admiration for Cr Randell.  I hope this admiration is not reciprocated, not in this connection anyway. 

Much as I disagree with Cr Randell’s vision of a rubbish-led recovery for York, I can’t believe—I don’t want to believe—that he would approve of threats against pet animals, even when the folk making those threats are his friends and supporters. 

Am I right, Trevor?  If so, would you mind telling your mates to stop threatening defenceless animals and direct their wrath at me?  Talk of poisoning our dogs upsets my wife, who has done absolutely nothing to offend you, the proprietors of Avon Waste, their hangers-on or members of their workforce.  Nor, come to that, have the dogs.

I’m a man in his seventies, not in very good health and fast approaching the antechamber of eternity.  I’m sure I would be an easy mark for cowards, thugs and creeps of the kind that submitted those comments to the blog. 

But I refuse to cringe before bullies—including bullies who hide anonymously under rocks and get idiots to do their dirty work for them.  Leave the dogs alone.  Keep away from my property.  Threaten me instead.  Do you have the wit or the ticker for that?