Leisure Centre . To Be or NOT to be?

PLEASE FORWARD THIS ON TO OTHER CONCERNED RESIDENTS.

Dear Concerned Residents;
Cr Campbell-Jones and the Our Leisure Centre group have been spending an extraordinary amount of money on press advertisements to prove how much support there is for the plan to build a Leisure Centre. They quote all sorts of “facts”, statistics and surveys to support their claim, many of which, to put it politely, do not bear close scrutiny. For example:
We have a mandate to do this: False. Clr Campbell Jones and his supporters were elected on a vague promise to build a Leisure Centre; but they did not tell electors how they planned to fund it. They had no mandate to sell off publicly owned land.
The Community supports the project: False. The surveys Clr Campbell Jones quotes were all taken before he and his supporters unveiled their scheme to cut up and sell off publicly owned pools, parks, reserves and other Community green spaces.
When they did, the Community reacted in outrage – sure, a Leisure Centre might be a good idea, but not at that cost! As Council’s own website confirms, an avalanche of written objections poured in; its series of official Community consultations produced a massive 94% “NO” vote against the proposal, and public Council meetings were packed with hundreds of angry residents objecting to the whole idea. Thousands of signatures on widely circulated petitions also expressed total rejection of the sale of publicly owned green spaces. Clr Campbell-Jones ignores these statistics!
The Community has been fully consulted: False. By the use of a legal nicety, the faction pushing to sell off public land to fund the Leisure Centre have avoided holding Community consultations on almost half of the twenty properties currently listed to be sold. There is no reason to believe that the 94% rejection rate for the other properties would have been any different in these cases.
No Reserves are on the list of properties to be sold: False. Stunned by the public backlash, Clr Campbell Jones and his supporters removed all public parks from the list; but of the twenty properties currently proposed to be sold, fully one third are designated Reserves. Read the list!
We will abide by the results of the Leisure Centre Poll: The Poll is not legally binding. Read the fine print of the poll questions - if the result goes against the Leisure Centre, determined Councillors, whilst abiding by the letter of their promise, can still go ahead and sell off the land for any other purpose they wish! Clr Malcolm Murray states in his campaign literature that “Council needs to realise some of its real estate assets to assist in funding the Leisure Centre and other infrastructure programs”.
Don’t fall for the old pea and thimble trick. On September 13th vote “NO & NO” for the Leisure Centre Poll – and don’t vote at all for any groups trying to persuade you to vote “YES”.
The online petition against the sale of public land to fund the Leisure Centre on:

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/wingecarribee-shire.html

is currently running three times as many signatures as the Our Leisure Centre petition. Please ask your friends to keep signing - different family members can vote separately if they have their own email account.

Sincerely,
Cam Ford

PLEASE FORWARD THIS ON TO OTHER CONCERNED RESIDENTS.MOSS VALE ACTION GROUP 42 Valetta St.,Moss Vale, NSW 2577(02)4868 2378