Talk:City of Cairns

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[edit] Currawong Street

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Full Disclosure: I work for the council. - Fosnez (talk) 02:15, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I really don't think the Currawong Street is relevant to the article. A couple of questions I would ask regarding it's inclusion:

  • Would you expect to see this in the Encyclopedia Britannica?
  • In 10 years time, is anyone really going to care?
  • Council decisions change, that's life, and I don't understand why a group of residents would act so selfish as to try to stop two entire suburbs being able to use a back way to avoid traffic on the highway.
  • Given the recent storms and the north side of the city again being cut off from central and south, perhaps the residents could think about it may be in their best interest to have an alternate route to the city that does not use the highway (Car pill-up, chemical spill etc).

I had removed the criticisms sections because I though this whole thing had blown over (and as I have stated above, I don't think it is really relevant considering the scope of the current article), but apparently not, as it has been added again. I can't really remove it because there would be probably be a conflict of interest. Discuss. Fosnez (talk) 02:15, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I consider the whole section to be un-encyclopedic. I imagine that Cairns City Council has been criticised for quite a number of decisions, but in any case, there don't appear to be 'criticism' sections about small local development issues in other articles about city governments, either in Australia, or other parts of the world. I'd be in favour of deleting the section. -- 124.168.194.75 (talk) 04:31, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Answers for your questions:
  • No, I wouldn't, but then again, this isn't Encyclopedia Britannica, this is Wikipedia.
  • In ten year's time, many people would still be caring if nothing has been done. The residents, for one, would still be extremely irritated by the noise and worried about the safety concerns assosciated with the rat running. The family of the person(s) who may have died in this street because no safety measures have been made. The street is practically a drift stip, every night you can hear a hoon speeding down the street risking the lives of all who use the road.
  • Council decisions can and do often change, however, this is not acceptable when they have made a signed, legally binding contract with residents. When this promise (note the lack of inverted commas) is broken, angry, disappointed, and disgusted residents eager to expose the dishonest ways of the council can only be expected. Let's put a thoroughfare through your street with no traffic calming devices, despite council promising that they would, and see if you become "selfish" and oppose to it.
  • The residents are not trying to close off the connection, they are simply trying to urge council to uphold their committments and put in traffic calming devices. In case of flood, chemical spill, car pile up etc etc residents from Forest Gardens would still be able to use Currawong St as an alternative route. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Super0515 (talk • contribs) 09:15, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
You're right, this IS Wikipedia, and Wikipedia is not your personal soap box for political commentary. Wikipedia is about notabilty, and although yes there are some angry people involved with this situation, and I can't say I wouldn't react the same if the situtations were reversed, I still need to point out: This disagreement really isn't all that special (I.E. it is not notable), it's an argument between a group of citizens and a local government. Hundreds of theses happen in the state every day, are you suggesting that each of these should have their own little piece on the Wikipedia? Fosnez (talk) 13:14, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I'd tend to agree - what council doesn't have specific but on general reflection very minor disputes with residents (which are nonetheless serious to those affected)? It's not in the same league as elsewhere - my council's had a royal commission into it, and the neighbouring ones have been sacked several times. Another neighbour hasn't had either but goings-on with its former mayor who became a state MP have seen it get statewide coverage. When it gets that stage of major, or is getting daily press attention in the state newspaper of record, then I think it enters a new ball game, but until then it remains the domain of blogs, local newspapers and such things. I took the liberty of searching Factiva and I could only find a few articles, all of which suggest this is your standard neighbourhood dispute involving a rat run used by people from other suburbs to get from A to B when they really shouldn't. This isn't actually about the council, if the street itself was notable to have an article (which, looking in my UBD map book it clearly isn't) it would be worthy of mention in that. Orderinchaos 23:40, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree that it doesn't seem greatly important and not really deserving of such a large section. It's only of local importance and seems likely to blow over soon enough. --Tombomp (talk) 21:23, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Responding to RfC: The text in this version is totally unacceptable as a violation of WP:NPOV. Would a neutral presentation of the dispute merit inclusion? I'm inclined to think not, on grounds of notability. I could be persuaded to the contrary if there evidence that the dispute is either significant in its own right or is usefully illustrative of some larger facet of the article's subject. JamesMLane t c 10:26, 28 March 2008 (UTC)