Council has deferred its decision on our proposal to save the old Maidstone Community Hall site from private sale until its general meeting on Tuesday March 16th.
The general public is allowed to attend these meetings and to ask questions in a 15 minute period at the beginning of the meeting. Generally a maxiumum of 3 questions is allowed per person per topic. If time permits, they’ll return back to a person after all have had their 3 questions.
They do not want the same question asked, and will quickly cut off people asking the same question or if they think the question has already been answered. They will cut off people if there’s no question in sight and they feel that it has become a statement.
We encourage everybody to come to the meeting and to ask pertinent questions. If you do, plan to ask a question, please think about it beforehand to make sure it makes the most of the little time we have . Please also email it to info@pow.org.au prior to the meeting, so that we can tell you if anybody else plans to ask the same question.
Since councillors are likely to have made up their mind prior to the meeting, it is even more important to let them know how you feel about the proposed sail of the land NOW. A quick email is the best way to do this. Points you could include are:
- council has a duty to keep council land in community hands wherever possible
- once sold and developed that land can never be got back, but POW’s proposal does not preclude council selling land at a later date, should it be unsuccessful. Therefore, council has nothing to lose
- the Maidstone site is in a recognised food desert, making it even more important to keep in community hands
- the POW proposal addresses council’s peak oil strategy, food security policy and zero emissions target without Council having to do the work
You may also want to look at the email already sent by one of our supporters and posted on our website for inspiration.
Once again, if you haven’t already read the proposal, you can find it at here