On common ground

LAST Thursday I attended a meeting hosted by Timbarra Primary School principal Jan Adamson and experienced a feeling of ‘here we go again’.
Someone is trying for the impossible.
Edrington Ward councillor Brian Hetherton arranged the discussion, even before he moved at last week’s council meeting that council officers investigate the feasibility of buying six hectares of prime Timbarra land.
Cr Hetherton wants the council to buy, or the government to give, the Education Departmentowned land next to the Timbarra Primary School to the council for community use.
He wants the land at first to be set aside to avoid it being covered with houses and lost forever. He wants it to become a passive and active leisure facility and what he asks for he should receive — that’s plain commonsense.
My view, however, is that he is asking for the impossible.
Nevertheless, Cr Hetherton used some statesmanship.
He invited LaTrobe MP Jason Wood, Narre Warren North MP Luke Donnellan and his coward councillor Mick Morland to the meeting, and Ms Adamson to act as host.
Ms Adamson, of all people, is the most in touch with community feelings about the land and her advice is of inestimable value.
One thing I missed, although it should be irrelevant in local government politics, was that Cr Morland is also the Liberal candidate for Narre Warren North in the quickly approaching State election.
With such a diverse political representation you could have expected fireworks, but no, the meeting was highly successful and all went away determined to look for pathways to up the ante on getting this tract of land for the people.
After all, Cr Hetherton is asking no more than to buy the land from the people who own it and who are entitled to it, and to give it back to them.
After all, a long stream of real estate agents promised the people who own it that the land would be theirs and it would have a school on it.
The developer planned the estate with that land set aside for two schools and somehow it went into Education Department ownership.
I wonder if the Education Department paid much for the property?
I wonder if it could be sold back to the council for the original purchase price now that the Education Department has no use for it?
Deja vu gets me into trouble, but My view was that George Wilson and Bill Hudson had no chance of getting the old Berwick Primary School property for the beautiful Berwick Village Pioneers Park, but they did.
Two old guys who should have been sitting at home in their slippers, and who I came to love in my work more than any others, got us Pioneers Park.
So I say stick with it, Cr Hetherton.