Cr Lee’s ‘achievements’ for Bright

Cr Greg Lee (from Mt Beauty) is taking credit for a number of ‘achievements’ for the town of Bright during his past 3 years as a councillor. Decide for yourself but in my opinion Greg’s list of so-called achievements is highly questionable and provides all the more reason for the Bright & Upper Ovens area having better representation on council. My response follows Greg’s self-glorifying list:

Here is a list of some of the things I have achieved (for the) Bright area:

1. Successfully advocated reform of Alpine Region Tourism. The Board is now functioning as an effective team.
2. I have spent a large proportion of my time on Council as Chairman of the Mountains to Murray Rail Trail. I list the major outcomes I have driven in this role…
• Ensured the 3 Councils have allocated sufficient funds to maintenance and upgrading of the trail
• Appointed a full time “Cycling Tourism Officer” to develop cycling events in the Shire
• Sorted out how we deal with illegal occupation and inappropriate use of the trail
• Championed additional feeder trails to the main “spine”
2. I have supported the push for a rail trail extension to Wandi. This is starting in this year’s budget with a $90,000 start to this exciting project. The great thing about this project is that it will link the two towns – providing recreational, exercise and tourism benefits.
3. Advocated for a more effective mechanism to control development – primarily in Bright. We now have the Bright Framework Committee which is taking on this role.
4. Pushed for sorting out the problems at the Bright pool.

Greg Lee, Mt Beauty

Comment/Response (by Ray Dixon, Bright):

Greg’s list of things he claims to have “achieved” for Bright is interesting:

1. Successfully advocated reform of Alpine Region Tourism. The Board is now functioning as an effective team.. Sorry, I can’t agree that Cr Lee was in any way responsible for the reform of ART - he was actually part of the problem! The advocacy for reform of ART came from the industry itself and was finally taken up by the new CEO Ian Nicholls as one of his first initiatives. It was not until the ‘writing was on the wall’ that ART was all but defunct, dysfunctional and certainly ineffective that Cr Lee finally ‘jumped ship’ and joined the call for its dissolution – after he’d sat on the old committee as council’s representative for 2 years. Sorry Greg, but for you to claim that as an ‘achievement’ is a bit rich in my opinion. Quite frankly, I’d have better grounds for claiming influence over that matter than what Cr Lee does.The new board is yet to prove itself, by the way.

2. The rail trail. I don’t want to knock Greg’s involvement with this highly important asset but obviously the Wangaratta council has been far more pro-active than Alpine in obtaining funds for its improvement, having applied for (and received) nearly one million dollars from the State Govt to extend it at their end down to Oxley and other places in the Wang shire. Meanwhile, all we’ve been able to ‘achieve’ is to extract $90,000 from our own budget to partially extend it to Mystic Hill (not Wandi). We need it extended to Harrietville but it seems to me we’ll need stronger advocacy than what Greg has provided in order to achieve that.

3. Advocated for a more effective mechanism to control development – primarily in Bright. We now have the Bright Framework Committee which is taking on this role. Again, the push for the formation of a Bright Framework (or planning) committee made up of members of the community came from … the community, not from Greg. Cr Lee is claiming credit for something that would have happened anyway due to the lobbying of people like Derrick Butler, Graham Owens, Bernece Delany and (yes) even Ray Dixon. Cr Lee voted in favour of the Coles supermarket development yet claims to be an advocate for tighter controls.

4. Pushed for sorting out the problems at the Bright pool. Oh please, Greg, of course you “pushed for sorting out the problems” … so has everybody else. Are you seriously claiming credit for what is still a ‘disaster area’?

And, after that lot of self-serving and desperate vote-grabbing by Cr Lee, all I’ve got left to say is this:

VOTE FOR YOUR LOCAL CANDIDATES – FOR BETTER REPRESENTATION FOR BRIGHT.