Douglas faces the fire the moment the frying pan is emptied. I sit aghast, sidelined as the now third ( and second last) dysfunctional sitting of the Douglas’s attempts more retribution politics, like the last days of Hitler’s bunker, where the continued attack on the Councils most senior contract manager, David Carey continues, as though driven by a certain departed managerial ghost.

Another of Douglas’s most senior, capable, planners of some 20 years experience just this week, got offered a job by Cairns, where his new boss (and job rival) has but only a couple of years experience. That’s justice?

The former, very capable top planner, Mr. Paul Trotman had the skill to see the writing on the wall, and departed to a senior Perth position a few months back. Just about every planner, and with it our senior building inspector, has now, or is soon about to, depart Douglas.

What this means, is Douglas is loosing is entire corporate planning memory, at a time when Cairns has had its most pro-development Council on record, and Douglas is, as they say, bent over the table without…..ah….you know what I mean.

This means the Port Douglas Waterfront has had its only corporate link to Douglas’s aspirations axed. We are, as they say, in deep shit. No staff. No memory of local issues. Only one rep in 11, a mere side event to a distant a regional city’s issues. Douglas is indeed feeling like the aggrieved and nervous residents of Clifton Beach and Palm Cove.

It gets worse. We hear, despite a now carefully structured community PAG driving the Waterfront, Cairns planners are being approached to just “get on with” the waterfront planning in total independence of community processes. Scary. And hopefully not true.

We don’t do neon signs. Cairns Council does. Douglas preserves its beachfronts, and its greenery, Cairns has to rock wall its esplanades. Some argue that Cairns leaders would not have stopped development in the Daintree, they would have facilitated it.

Douglas contributes more to its tourism promotion than even a city like Cairns. And from what we hear, those little Hitler’s in the Brisbane ALP, have the same agenda for local tourism groups as they do for local councils. Amalgamation. If ya reading this MP Jason O’Brien please feel free to deny this rumor. The Brisbane idiots have already managed to mangle the Iconic legislation, as a Trojan horse to pervert a council crippling agenda, on DA assessment.

Douglas is not being merged, hell, it’s a corporate raid. A take no prisoners raid. Remove all staff of significance. Remove all bar one rep. Wipe the corporate memory, and just homogenize Noosa and Douglas.

But Douglas’s ‘gang of 4′, who have held the redneck majority (ruling out voting  the three Councillors Berwick, Davis and Cox) and are, and continue to be, as big a threat to Douglas’s traditional values as any Cairns City Council. They have attacked anything environmental, they have pandered to developers wanting to push the bubble, they have stood by autocratic management that one parliamentary investigation after another damned. They refused to sell $13M in land assets, so as to donate hard earned Douglas savings to Cairns debt relief. They have used fear, ignorance and hatred to reduce the shire’s governance to a survival battle of Douglas vs. the rednecks. Now it’s Douglas vs. the white shoes. Hell guys, I worked in the building business, but even I know the limits, place and form of acceptable development, but when Cairns votes to demolish our iconic planning protection aspirations, be assured, we are nervous. When the Urban Planning Institute of Cairns declared ‘ready, set, go” for formerly restrained Cairns Developers wanting to raid Douglas, try and tell us we should not be nervous. Douglas does not seek a Hedley crane skyline. Nor does Clifton or Palm Cove.

I can’t claim to hold the full corporate memory of Douglas, but I am at least probably the most informed councilor when it comes to town planning, having learnt it at Uni, and having put the most effort into reshaping the Douglas town plan that went on to sweep last years planning awards. Even I will battle, with not a single planner left to recall details of the current and past state of play, but I at least, know more than most all other candidates on this specialty issue. Douglas will need a rep with at least some link with the history and dealings of the Douglas Shire. Those reading in Clifton and Palm Cove can maybe breathe a sigh of relief that their potential new councilor may well share their views, as Palm Cove/Clifton has more in common with Port Douglas than Portsmith.

So for Douglas, we get exhumed from being fried by a cabal of 4 councilors, to being thrown into the fire of the development mad Cairns. The reason why developers want to raid Douglas is because the Douglas community has for years restrained its growth, so the place is still reasonably attractive.

I get hammered as being part of the brawl that was Douglas Shire Council. I was a minority opposition, doing all I could to maintain Douglas’s heart felt enviro and built enviro restraints, and with it the, social values that make this place livable in areas beyond just money. How on earth, we managed as a minority to save the Daintree, win a planning award, and keep out all but one KFC sometimes amazes me. I was up against it. Just as I may well be up against it in Cairns. And yes, it does mean putting your foot down. I hold out some hope, nonetheless, that the better mannered, better educated and informed Cairns councilors will not be as difficult to deal with as Douglas ‘gang of 4′ so the jump from frying pan to fire, is just the same to me, as throwing Briar Rabbit into the thorny thicket.

Councilor Rod Davis

Authorised by R.Davis 9/9 Craven Close, Port Douglas.

www.roddavis.org

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