What have Wines and Newman done or not done for this community since elected?

We seek to build up an accurate record of Cr Wines’ contribution or lack of it locally here. The more accurate and complete this record is the better.

1. When we asked the Lord Mayor Campbell Newman and Cr Wines for action to get local meeting rooms for small community groups in The Grove Cr Wines bluntly told us to use Mitchelton Library. It is 7 kms away on average from here with no public transport.

2. When we asked Cr Wines for figures on expenditure in The Grove he told us to read the BCC Budget. [We already had completely and there was nothing in it that broke the figures down to the level of local suburbs like Keperra Ferny Grove and Upper Kedron. Cr Wines would not provide us with any information at all that we could use to establish if even one cent had been spent anywhere locally around here. In fact the most obvious conclusion to be drawn was that nothing was being spent here at all and local rates were flowing straight out of The Grove to provide facilities elsewhere in BCC.

3. The Brisbane City Council runs a programs in local parks and centres for fitness and culture but there is virtually nothing locally here. Moreton Bay Regional Council in the suburbs of Ferny Hills and Arana Hills with an identical number of residents to the BCC suburbs of Upper Kedron Ferny Grove and Keperra offered 13 programs in its Older & Bolder program alone locally in 3 months while BCC offered nothing in 5 years. With a lot of phone calls and putting forward the names of excellent local providers BCC have offered 2 this quarter here not provided by local providers as far as we can establish. What would have helped would have been if they had made clear what the starting points were for local providers to be considered and supported to provide activities here. The Lord Mayor Campbell Newman’s solution was to get in our car (no public transport) and drive about 28 kms to a one-hour exercise class for oldies. He isn’t acting on Peak Oil. The most recent BCC newsletter said that there were activities in parks near us. We went through every single BCC activity in all their current programs and found almost nothing in The Grove. It is simply untrue that there are BCC activities around here in anything more than an almost non-existent quantity.

4. When are we going to get a bike-path along Kedron Brook?

5. When Ferny Grove Tavern was programmed for removal we approached Cr Wines to ask him what investigation he had done about how this would affect the residents of Ferny Grove and Upper Kedron where we are critically short of social meeting places. The Council has a different responsibility here than the State electorate of Ferny Grove which covers a huge area right out in the Samford Valley and Ferny Hills. Cr Wines did not provide anything to suggest he had done any independent research into the matter from the State government or anything to independently consider whether the needs of Ferny Grove and Upper Kedron residents were protected. It was most unsatisfactory.

6. On Clean-up Australia Day a number of local groups participated in helping to clean up along Kedron Brook including areas behind Grovely State School in the Brisbane City Council area. We invited Cr Wines to come along – he didn’t even have to get his hands dirty – he could have had his photo taken and been interviewed on local radio saying Clean Up Australia Day is a good thing. But he did not even respond to the request. He did put in one of his e-bulletins that it was happening. Moreton Bay Regional Council by contrast could not have been more helpful (we also cleaned up in part of their area too). They provided a whole heap of bags and gear. Quite a few of the workers commented on the absence of any BCC representation or input and the contrast with MBRC.

7. Lord Mayor Campbell Newman’s 2 Million Trees project descended on the street verges in Ferny Grove with virtually no warning and no consultation. At the time we were very closely involved in quite a small area of the suburb and had dreams and visions for the potential of street verges to be part of local food security. We knew we had to be patient but that is quite different from having all future options completely taken away without any local consultation at all. Our local streets ‘got’ leopard trees or paperbark trees planted in them. These grow into large trees guaranteed to take away most of the available sunlight from front yards and sharply reduce residents’ choices about what they are able to grow in their front yards. There are very restrictive laws about being able to prune or manage street trees. Whatever we each individually think of street trees and different types of trees the core issue is community consultation – really asking local communities what they want in their streets. By ‘can do’ imposition without consultation our community was denied any say or voice or vision. It was salutatory to observe how rapidly about half the new trees vanished silently away. Residents are now left with the problem of how to manage those that remain and concern is growing about what it is going to do to their ability to have flowers and a garden.

8. Cr Wines publishes an e-newsletter from time to time of what’s on – hardly ever going beyond activities at Mitchelton Library. There is virtually never any activity at all in the whole part of his Ward over the ridge in the suburbs of Keperra Ferny Grove and Upper Kedron. If Mitchelton Library is so important how about some transport to it? Or how about a mobile library to this end of the Ward? Many of the residents of Cr Wines electorate use the Moreton Bay Regional Council library facilities at Arana Library but we aren’t ratepayers there. The Arana Library provides terrific local service including a mobile library.

9. A lot of the facilities locally in this upper Kedron Brook valley are an ‘overflow’ from the Moreton Bay Regional Council’s Division 10 area that gets called ‘The Hills & Districts’. For example there is ‘The Hills & Districts Chamber of Commerce’ ‘The Hills PCYC’. The cluster of facilities in Arana Hills in Dawson Parade including The Hills Community Centre are all very close to the boundary with Brisbane City Council there. Only Arana Leagues Club is over ‘the boarder’. This cluster is used as a hub by both councils but is primarily supported by Moreton Bay Regional Council. There is very little else at all in the whole of Keperra stretching right across to Thompson Range and all the new part where the old drive-in was replaced. A whole suburb devoid of almost any facilities at all and piggy-backing on the Moreton Bay Regional Council hub at Arana Hills.

10. When do the two councils cooperate? They share a valley a natural bio-region and basically divide it into two countries down our local Creek. They have put a border down the middle of our valley community and divided the community. When do they work together to ensure the whole valley works well?