The Council election is upon us. While there are many decisions to be made regarding the experience and personality of the various candidates, there is another decision that we will all make when we choose a candidate.

Like everyone who moves to Tamborine Mountain, with love lights in our eyes, we thought everything was perfect. Well perfect but wouldn’t it make more sense if ( . . . that tree was removed).

The Daily Star has scaled back its' use of the social networking programs like Facebook as serious data-harvesting claims have been made about the way some of these applications report your internet usage back to marketers in America.

Population growth rates on Tamborine Mountain eclipsed those of Beaudesert over the past ten years according to figures obtained by the Daily Star from the State Government Department of Economic and Statistical Research.  Kooralbyn is estimated to have grown by over 70% whilst Rathdowney shrank by 3% over the ten year period.

Council CEO Craig Barke was absent from last week's Council meeting.  The Mayor, the Courier Mail and Greg Hallam from the shadowy Local Government Association Queensland say it was because of stress - Barke says it was not.  Meanwhile our survey indicates our highly paid CEO should front up and justify himself to ratepayers.

The Scenic Rim Regional Council's PR hardman, Mr Lyall Mercer is at it again.  Having ordered the Tamborine Mountain Daily Star to remove articles and rearrange the Star's layout recently - which is the subject of an Official Complaint by the Daily Star - he is now targetting the local print media with his criticism and demands.

When you spruke numbers and percentages I really wonder what you are trying to achieve. John, there’s little point hanging your hat on statistics, (eg more dollars to Capital works for the Mountain), what you are missing in the game is Perception.  The perceived service that yourself, the Councillors and your staff are providing the Shire. 

Writing about local government seems like swimming though Golden Syrup.  It is hard to do, messy and sometimes a rather pointless task. 

Clearly the community is discontent with our current Council.  A newly formed SRRC Rate Payers Association are calling for all concerned SRRC residents to attend their opening meeting on Monday 1st November at 10am at the Beaudesert Golf Club.  

In an interview with Cr John Brent recently, the Mayor told the Daily Star that Gallery Walk was unlikely to get the planned car park any time soon.  He also indicated that the by-pass road that many residents and business owners have been hoping for is also unlikely.

In a recent article in the Australian, ex ABC Board member Judith Sloan asks provocatively: "So what is the point of the ABC?  Should taxpayers be funding the ABC to compete against private providers who both want to and can do everything that the ABC can do?"