It will be interesting to see whether the people who whinged about the previous council will now be satisfied.
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It’s doubtful.
All 12 councillors have wish lists going in different directions and as Rudyard Kipling said in his poem, “east is east and west is west and never the twain shall meet ...”.
There’s some big decisions waiting on the books already with more commercial development in north Orange, plans for a convention centre and hotel on land opposite the Botanic Gardens that will need extensive traffic changes like more lights or the realignment of Hill Street to join the distributor at William Maker Drive at a new roundabout.
And the airport industrial estate.
But can anything be done in Orange without someone complaining?
Are we a city of whingers and not-in-my-backyarders?
Obviously people can have genuine complaints, but every proposed new development has its detractors and that goes back to the late 1950s when Orange airport was built on the casting vote of the mayor Gordon Machin.
Six of the 12 aldermen reckoned we didn’t need an airport because Bathurst had one and Orange people could get on the bus and catch the plane there.
The airport is now in the centre of a row between landholders and the council over a proposed industrial site surrounding it.
There’s been a bitter fight over a new Byng Street motel, complaints about the re-development of the old Myer building, a proposed new childcare centre and a pop-up coffee shop.
So what next? Hardy-har-har hmph, tch tch!
APPLE’S ‘INNOVATION’ IS DECADES BEHIND THE TIMES
APPLE’S Series 3 smart watch just unveiled by chief operating officer Jeff Williams with lots of fanfare and billed as one of the company’s hottest new products is about 71 years behind the times.
Apple has added a tiny SIM card letting you make phone calls, answer messages and stream songs direct from the watch.
But we old comic strip addicts know Dick Tracy, that square-jawed, hard-hitting detective, had a two-way wrist radio back in 1946 that became one of the strip's most recognisable icons.
Mr Williams might have dug up some old Dick Tracy comics so his company could re-design its smart iWatch.
It goes to show there’s nothing new under the sun.
FENCE GOOD FOR SECURITY, BAD FOR WHIMSICAL ROLLS
WORK is under way this week building a massive steel security fence across the sloping lawns of Canberra's Parliament House as part of a $126 million security upgrade.
It’s all very sad that terrorism concerns have now put an end to the popular tradition of lawn tumbling that’s been enjoyed there by hundreds of people.
Besides, people reckoned Canberra was the only city in the world where you could physically and symbolically stand on top of boring pollies working in the national parliament.
But Canberra’s loss could be Orange’s gain because our visitor’s centre and museum building, in line for an architectural award, has an excellent grassy slope roof for people to roll down.
Just think. We could become the lawn tumbling capital of Australia and there could be special days when the councillors could spend an hour or so in the visitors centre so Orange people with a gripe could get some symbolic satisfaction by standing or rolling down the grassy slope on top of them.