Commenting on the story: Lord Mayor returns fire from predecessor over Crows park lands bid

Solidly etched into my memory is a meeting with the Lord Mayoral candidate, at which she assured me that the preservation of the park lands would be safe in her hands.

The convoluted process for dealing with unsolicited bids which this Council has dreamt up is totally inappropriate for commercial developments in the park lands.

It is nothing more than a Council-imposed operational guideline. It does not have statutory force and should not be used to override higher policies of the Council.

One of the highest and most critical council policies is the preservation of the park lands which surround the city, and which now have National Heritage listing.

I ask the Lord Mayor to stand by her commitments, and to lead her Council to fulfil its function as custodian of the city park lands. – D.A.Plumridge, former Deputy Lord Mayor

Could not agree more with J. Lomax-Smith’s thoughts on the Crow’s park land proposal.

She has the most succinct and balanced argument against allowing a national corporation to build office accommodation on our unique, invaluable and shrinking parklands.

The council should simply fund, with whatever help it can, from wherever it can get it, a new/refurbished public swimming centre. – Jim Breeze

Please stop trying to take away our park and for Crows commercial interests. – Frank May

Reading about the supposed return of park lands, here are some current facts as I have been advised.

Area currently used by Adelaide Aquatic Centre: 11,909.59 square metres, as set out in Council minutes of the 10/12/19, page 25.

Proposed Adelaide Football Club footprint: 12,430 square metres, as stated in email from Adelaide Council dated 20/2/2020.

This by my calculation means the Crows currently proposed development is 530.41 square meters more than the existing Aquatic Centre.

Further, if the current Crows development footprint is divided into thirds, the public get 4143.33 square metres to accommodate all the current activities being held in 11909.59.

So I’m fed up with the obfuscating. The current facility is used by 714000 for their health and well-being, and the Council seems prepared to flip it on to serve an elite group and their fans.

It’s time for Council to stop this and get back to their job of managing this facility properly. – Frances McClurg

The Crows claim their proposal would return over 6000-square metres to the parklands.  What a load of rubbish.

It is all park lands. The Crows plan is to take park land for their sole use.  How many car parks will they use every day that will not be available to the public using the swimming centre, how many unnecessary paths will they lay for their use that are not required by the public? 

Will the public be able to have a kick and a catch on the training oval during Crows training sessions?  

If this goes through we should start planning the permanent pit garages and grandstands for the Superloop 500 in Victoria Park. 

Even the Fringe does not have a permanent home in the park lands.  Do the right thing Adelaide City Council. – Tony Sofo

There is strong opposition to this proposal, but this is not going to be made public.

I was in the meeting in the community centre in North Adelaide and many many people were opposed. Same as all those people I talked to.

The main reason is that commercial enterprise should not build administration staff areas on the park lands. Why should they be treated differently to any other administration staff?

They can use the Le Cornu site, but that area is too high real estate to just give away, instead they give away the people’s park lands! So sad!

All a very big worry and the big enterprise will win of course and the small normal person will lose.

So sad, what can you do? – Liesbeth Pockett

Commenting on the story: “South Australians should be concerned”: Treasurer’s grim economic warning

The Treasurer’s grim economic warning for the state has highlighted a certain degree of craziness by this government.

Rob Lucas talks about increasing expenditure to boost the state’s economy, which means higher budget deficits.

This comes not long after the government changed the land tax rules, which may not have been a capitulation on its originally stated aims but appears to have been a significant back down, which will result in much less revenue being raised.

The new land tax legislation completely overlooks one important area of revenue. Land tax applies to individuals, companies and trusts that own investment properties, but strangely exempts superannuation funds from the land tax regime.

By allowing this exemption – the justification for which is not readily apparent – the government is forgoing a significant revenue stream.

This can only be described as a loophole, and like any loophole it needs to be fixed. – Mark Jones

Commenting on the story: Coronavirus cases grow in Australia as global toll increases

I think everyone needs to just take a step back and calm down.

Do you remember the mania over SARS?  What about swine flu? What happened to those “pandemics”? Nothing, absolutely nothing. And yet there was widespread media hype and fear-mongering.

Settle down. I’m sure it’s not the end of the world! – Melissa Jones

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