Keep the Scenic Rim Scenic President, Innes Larkin, has expressed his “frustration and disappointment” with the Scenic Rim Council’s response to an opportunity to increase the mining exploration restriction areas beyond the region’s main urban footprints.
He queried why his group was not consulted during the selection process.

The Scenic Rim Council is under fire for the ad hoc manner in which it chose to protect only some smaller communities from new applications for mineral exploration.  The move has drawn criticism from the Keep the Scenic Rim Scenic lobby group for lack of consultation and for potentially pitting one community against another.

A media storm has erupted over a claim that the Scenic Rim Regional Council is attempting to censor an online newspaper based Tamborine Mountain.  A new media co-ordinator for Council wrote an email demanding the immediate removal from the Tamborine Mountain Daily Star’s website of a political article featuring Division 1 Councillor, Derek Swanborough.

Scenic Rim Regional Council CEO Craig Barke has failed to answer questions about the engagement of new Media Co-ordinator, Lyall Mercer. The Fassifern Guardian has emailed a list of questions to the CEO and the Council’s Media Department about the employment of Mr Mercer but has failed to gain any response.

SCENIC Rim Mayor, John Brent, has likened Cr Derek Swanborough to a white ant.  In a letter giving a preliminary judgment of inappropriate conduct against the Tamborine Mountain representative, the Mayor says he relied on three sources in arriving at this.

THE disastrous January floods have left the Scenic Rim a rainbow promise of better roads - with a $23.5 million pot of gold at the end of it.  It took the floods to wash away the spectre of a $2.5 million black hole that was beginning to haunt the Scenic Rim Council’s Budget.

IF Scenic Rim Mayor, John Brent, and his ‘gang of five’ are re-elected next year it will be full steam ahead for Beaudesert’s $6.6 million library-precinct.  That’s the prediction of Cr Derek Swanborough, following Cr Brent’s disclosure that he intends to move for a two-year postponement of the controversial project.

That was Bevan Pressler’s reaction yesterday to the Mayor attempting to dispute the accuracy of his 4,845-strong petition against the Beaudesert library-precinct project. 

FACED with a $30 million-plus flood damage bill for Scenic Rim roads, Mayor John Brent, is refusing to abandon the $6.6 million Beaudesert library-precinct project. 

Scenic Rim Councillors no longer have to leave the room when decisions are made about community organisations in which they hold membership.  Or at least that is the new ruling by the CEO Craig Barke when it comes to deciding on grant allocations to community groups.  However, no clarification given on Swanborough's repeated expulsions.

The Scenic Rim Rate Payers Association have called on Council to hold a referendum on the the future of the Beaudesert Revitalisation and Library Project.  In an open letter to the Mayor and Councillors, the group’s president, Ken Vandermolen, has asked for the referendum to be held before the close of the public consultation period.

Scenic Rim residents are paying the highest price for water in South East Queensland.  And the lack of pricing parity is the legacy of the former owners of the local water distribution network, the Scenic Rim Regional Council, and of those State Government corporations responsible for the sale of bulk water.

Construction work on the $6.6 million Beaudesert library and carpark will begin next year and be completed by 2012. The Scenic Rim Regional Council’s new plans for the controversial Beaudesert revitalisation project were revealed this week.

A new controversy surrounds a petition to gather 4,485 ratepayer signatures to protest the councils building a state of the art new library in Beaudesert.  The number may have been higher if petition sheets were not stolen from shops around the Scenic Rim.

The Editor of the Fassifern Guardian has released a strongly worded Open Letter to the Minister for Local Government the Hon Desley Boyle.  The letter says: "The way your are blundering your way through controversies enveloping conflict of interest (COI) provisions in section 173 of the new Local Government Act has echoes of a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta."