Who should run for Gympie council, who should walk away

OPINION: It appears The Gympie Times editorial and reporting staff are trying to dictate to ratepayers just who should be our councillors

Gympie Council 2018 Hilary Smerdon, Dan Stewart, Glen Hartwig, Bob Leitch, Mick Curran, Bob Fredman, Mal Gear, Daryl Dodt and Mark McDonald. Picture: Renee Albrecht

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

IT APPEARS that The Gympie Times editorial and reporting staff are trying to dictate to ratepayers just who should be our councillors.

This stunt in The Gympie Times on Saturday, January 26, must be about selling papers and cannot be taken seriously.

On one hand, criticism is only made about two of the sitting councillors having other jobs on top of their council position.

What happened with Dan Stewart's position with Child Safety, what happened with Glen Hartwig's sand blasting business or Hilary Smerdon's tank building business? Why were the readers and ratepayers not made aware of these?

When you start on the Kovacevic picks of 2020, I again see plenty of names who also work full-time. Should we discount this right away under the current situation or is it OK if Kovacevic backs them?

I do not believe that there will be many nominations at the next election because of the negative Gympie people who only believe in Facebook assassinations but who are not really keen to put anything positive on the table.

These same people are not doers, they are whingers. They believe that everything that happens in the Gympie region is bad even though the region has been made more liveable than ever over the last three years.

Some of the whingers are also holding grudges because the candidates that they backed in the previous elections were beaten convincingly.

As for the editorial in The Gympie Times on January 26, Shelley Strachan also states that the dogs having been barking for a few years, but surely, even Ms Strachan is smart enough to realise that these are the same old grumpy dogs all the time causing the other dogs to bark. They and not different dogs.

I cannot wait to see Scot Kovacevic and Shelley Strachan's names at the top of next year's council nominations along with the constant whingers.

Wayne Plant,

Southside