Tamworth’s David Foster isn’t happy with what Tamworth Regional Council is doing.
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Tamworth Regional Council seems to think more about itself and its own status within the Local Government Association of NSW than it does about its citizens whose rates and indirect taxes pay for it to operate.
It seems hell-bent on finding any way it can to indirectly tax the people in the Tamworth regional area.
Schemes to take money from those least able to afford it include charges where there were previously no charges at all. For instance charges are now levied for the simple tipping of green waste and wood, which was traditionally always free to residents.
Just recently a hefty fee for those poor blighters who only have septic tanks has been announced by the TRC via an unpleasant letter to the many ratepayers living in rural and semi-rural areas who cannot connect to town sewerage.
People living in the back-blocks are incensed by the incivility and arrogance of the letter which instructs them to swear an oath of honesty to the mighty TRC about their sewage arrangements.
This fee is for an initial inspection followed by an annual levy. These indirect taxes and charges are just the tip of the heap.
And speaking of tips, the TRC tip according to their spin doctors, is one of the most advanced waste management facilities in regional Australia. Great for council chest-beating but it was, after all, paid for by the community, whether they wanted it or not.
The next big revenue-raiser being planned by the mayor and the boys in the back room is a huge new prison designed to initially hold a large and then ever-increasing number of high-risk inmates.
Of course our mayor and our local MP strongly deny that any decision has been made , which is simply code for the fact that they haven’t yet got all their political ducks lined up to fire off such an announcement.
A new prison will cost this community dearly, of that I assure you, and I don’t just mean the cash the ratepayers in our region will have to contribute towards the setting up of this huge lock-up, which will more than likely be run by one of those ineffective, profit-seeking, privately-owned prison operations.
Our city fathers will tell us that a big prison will mean more jobs, and more money flowing into town, but if we Google some statistics about what has happened to other communities which have been foolish enough to allow this to happen in their city, there are some scary comments to be found.
An internet search will inform you that the families of prisoners pretty soon move in, usually without any family member in regular employment, and this means that crime increases significantly.
The kind of criminal activities usually engaged in are drug dealing, break-and-enter, car theft and a bit of bashing and rape as well.
The kind of prisoners that will be housed in this new facility will be dangerous people, and any potential breakout increases risk to our community significantly.
How is the level of potential danger going to be policed? The answer is it that it cannot be properly policed.
We don’t even have enough police on the ground to adequately cover the crime situation that we have in this region as it is.
The biggest game the police service is playing is the gathering in of revenue. Have you seen the new super-equipped cars now on our highways?
What a shame that the main focus of the police service is on catching errant motorists – it certainly isn’t on catching active criminals in our region.
A major prison in this region is something we don’t need and should oppose.
This regional council is all about user pays, and the great double-dip, as they conveniently forget about the services that ratepayers are already paying for.
The TRC is not good at listening to community concerns and is worse when it comes to acting on them. Make sure the TRC doesn’t pull the wool over your eyes on this issue.