Tuesday 4 November 2008

CEC start False Cape work

After over a year of political Council and State government wrangling; three years of severe damage to what was a pristine coastline view from Cairns; a Federal Minister's intervention; much Cairns City Council's mis-management and negligence, False Cape is about to get some urgent pre-wet season surgery.
Yesterday, Cairns construction company CEC rolled back onto the work site, that has been abandoned for months.
Never explained properly to the public, the Council have not invoked their $650,000 bond that they should be holding for this use, to spend towards clean up the 2 klm long False Cape site. Instead, as a act of mad local politics, they're paying for it themselves, out of Ratepayer money, and added it to developer John Ewens rate's bill.
CEC moved a large excavator onto the site, presumably to start remedial work. You have to wonder how an excavator will stabilise the now scarred hillslopes.
Over the last two wet seasons, substantial sediment run off was recorded. Save False Cape campaigners have been fighting for action for nearly three years. You can see the damage to False Cape from these amazing photos taken onboard the Buttrose Nowakowski death-defying helicopter ride, that I'm assured will not be an attraction at next year's Cairns Show.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes, I too was wondering why Council haven't invoked some of the $650,000 bond, rather than add it to John "Crusher" Ewen's rate bill... Then I've been thinking, perhaps Council are anticipating even more damage up the road, so holding back on using the bond doesn't seem quite so silly. It would be interesting to know how much the 'clean-up' is estimated to cost.

I guess too, if Council is still holding the bond, they're receiving the interest on that amount, so perhaps they're adding to the bond, in the almost certain knowledge that "Crusher" will cause even more damage.

Additionally, if Crusher can't pay his rates bill (well, I guess pigs can fly too, but...) then Council could seize & sell off the land for non-payment of rates.

But here.... I'm talking a bit of logic (I think!) & possibly it's just council being bloody stupid, as usual. Val, hello, Val? Are you there. Val?????

Anonymous said...

The issue that Council have is that the $650k bond is aa bank guarantee from a third party company (which does not appear on the ASIC website as being registered in Australia) and the guarantee is 20 years old. The Council does not have any of the Developers Money in the Bank. Council are putting a charge on the property as this appears to be the most likely way of getting their/our money back.

The questions need to be asked as to why this was allowed to happen in the first place.

Anonymous said...

Lots of dodgy stuff happened under KB's reign - you know mates rates and all!!!

Anonymous said...

Excuse me Jan ... get it right.
All False Cape deals were set up during Tom Pyne's days with the old Mulgrave Shire.
And standing right beside him in those days was, labour party mate, Councillor Dr Lesley Clark, who later became State Member for Barron River.

Give poor old Kev a break.