Public water discussion - Saturday May 27 2006 - Harristown State School Hall ...

From the Chronicle (annotated):

Morley pledges no sideshow with public water discussion

Rosemary Morley promises nothing will be "staged" when a public meeting on water recycling is held later this month.

People can speak their minds, applaud, boo and ask questions without being silenced.

Mrs Morley, co-ordinator of CADS, called the meeting yesterday after waiting nearly 10 months for Toowoomba City Council to keep its promise for a similar meeting.

After discovering Mayor Thorley was off to Western Australia to give another talk on recycling, Mrs Morley decided enough was enough.

"I'm sick and tired of Mayor Thorley going all over the country (giving talks) and not addressing the local community," Mrs Morley said. "She's spreading the word far and wide, but not in Toowoomba."

In past months, Cr Thorley has travelled to Melbourne and Gympie to talk about council's Water Futures project. Today she will be in Perth on invitation from the university of Western Australia.

Cr Thorley yesterday promised numerous public meetings would be held in all corners of the city once Toowoomba's water poll was formally announced.

[Seeing is believing - Toowoomba City Council has studiously avoided any public discussion of recycled sewage for the past 10 months. The fact that the poll has not been formally announced hasn't stopped the Director of Engineering Services, Kevin Flanagan, from scheduling a meeting with Crows Nest Shire residents to discuss the Water Futures project - a meeting from which Toowoomba residents are excluded.]

She said a public meeting had not been organised previously because council had not received funding approval from the Federal Government.

[Sounds like a lame excuse - why not talk to the community you're supposed to be representing.]

Cr Thorley said her trip to Western Australia was being paid for by the university and it was no different from talks any city mayor would be invited to on a number of subjects.

[Apart from one trip to Albury to discuss security cameras, all Mayor Thorley's recent trips have involved discussion of the "benefits" of recycled sewage. She is not representing the people of Toowoomba on these trips. In effect, she is an advertising tool for the recycled water companies although they seem to have been distancing themselves from her.]

With a few weeks to organise Toowoomba's public water meeting, Mrs Morley said she would send invitations to Premier Beattie, Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg and the mayor.

[It will be interesting to see if Premier "water water everywhere" Beattie will attend.]

"People are welcome to being their placards and posters. Come down and let us hear you," she said.

The meeting will be held on Saturday 27 May at Harristown State School Hall, commencing at 2pm.