Daily Archives: March 31, 2021

Emails tendered to the ICAC reveal Mr Sidotis reliance on Liberal councillors to green light planning decisions linked to his familys interests, including in October 2015 when he wrote to councillor Tanveer Ahmed, Mate, without you Im f--ked.

Mr McNamara told the commission Ms McCaffreys request at the 2015 workshop was unusual because the council had repeatedly rejected calls to rezone the area.

Independent experts engaged by the council had found there was no public interest in increasing density in the area.

Furthermore, just two of 389 submissions from the community argued in favour of rezoning, both of which were from town planners on behalf of the Sidoti family.

Mr McNamara told the commission the issue had been thrashed to death.

My concern was that [councils] professional work was being undermined and discredited for, basically personal motives, Mr McNamara said.

He said the highly-regarded Ms McCaffrey was clearly uncomfortable when she approached him.

I think she felt she shouldnt be doing it. She said, Im under pressure to do this and Im not really comfortable with this situation.

Mr Sidoti is the former sports minister. He has moved to the crossbench while the ICAC investigation is underway.Credit:Wolter Peeters

Former general manager of the council Gary Sawyer also gave evidence on Tuesday, telling the commission Mr Sidoti was still actively attempting to lobby the council in 2017.

Mr Sawyer recalled a conversation with Ms McCaffrey, who suggested she had been lobbied by Mr Sidoti who was unhappy that his family properties had been left out of the rezoning.

Mr Sawyer also recalled an interaction with a stunned Liberal councillor Mirjana Cestar in February 2017, hours before a council meeting discussing the Sidotis rezoning proposal.

I walked into the council chamber and councillor Cestar was holding the phone and she said to me, something along the lines, I just cant believe the message Ive received from Sidoti.

Mr Sawyer said she did not repeat what Mr Sidoti had said, but that he told her not to vary from council staffs recommendation to reject the proposal, unless there were new grounds to do so.

I was certainly making sure that she was clear in what the ramifications might be...if it wasnt based on planning merit, he said.

The inquiry will also consider whether Mr Sidoti engaged in a breach of public trust by failing to disclose pecuniary interests between 2011 and 2019, contrary to his obligations under the ministerial code of conduct. He has strenuously denied all allegations.

The inquiry before Commissioner Peter Hall, QC, continues.

Lucy Cormack is a state political reporter with TheSydney Morning Herald.

See the original post here:

ICAC hears of pressure from the party amid calls to rezone land linked to MP John Sidoti - Sydney Morning Herald

The contradiction between liberalism and the politics of gender is now a full-blown crisis.

The Liberal Party is facing a crisis, one related to gender, but it's not the one you think it is.

It's true that recent weeks have exposed a level of decadence and squalor that has surprised even many of its enemies. The Morrison government had managed, before and since the last election, to put together a programme and approach which combined voter self-interest and collective being (from the "promise of Australia" to the "quiet Australians") in a formula upon which Labor found difficult to land a blow.

Morrison appeared capable of mediating between the Coalition's hard right, and the centre/centre-right mainstream.He threw a few bones to the culture warriors, but also sought to defuse confrontations without capitulation. An example was invoking the convicts in the now-annual January 26 stoush: he proposed an alternative set of victims, rather than the Howard-Abbott approach of celebrating Western civilisation "with blemishes".

Go here to read the rest:

Is the Liberal Party being forced to kill off its own liberalism? - Crikey

In my previous article, I described the BJP as a Hindu Democratic Party, in an evidence-based manner by interpreting their recent record of legislative and executive actions.

On this basis, it was demonstrated that they do not even qualify to be considered a traditional right-wing or even traditionally conservative party.

Among interesting feedback to the article was confusion that it implies the BJP is like the Democratic Party of the USA.

This view is wildly off the mark, but it underscores that the default Indian political understanding broadly divides politics into modern liberalism (akin to the US Democrats/British Labour) and traditional conservatism (like the US Republican Party/British Conservatives).

This is a very narrow binary view that does not reflect the reality of Indian politics at all.

A second and very pertinent piece of feedback is that the original article appears to impose a western construct (Christian democracy) upon India. However, thats not quite the case, as this article describes.

Christian democracy is simply an umbrella term for a range of European parties who all have a common imperative with the BJP the preservation of a homeland safe for their faiths, while also maintaining a functional modern democracy, i.e. not a theocracy.

Hindu Democracy : A Form of Liberal Conservatism

The BJPs recent legislative record is wide ranging. Some laws address core political objectives: the elimination of Article 370 and the CAA law and the pursuit of UCC.

Others address reformist goals like the farm laws, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, and the GST. Other recent legislative actions are very liberal minded supporting workers compensation rights, consumer rights, maternity care and abortion rights and transgender rights.

In political science, this is liberal conservatism. The conservative basis is forward looking it just values orderly evolution that focusses on preserving the basic cultural fabric of the land.

If the underlying basis is too rigid, it becomes a right wing traditional polity or theocracy, instead of a liberal conservative entity. Hinduism is a forward- looking religion that enables this.

There is no compromise or hypocrisy in liberal conservatism. The BJPs support, for example, of maternity, abortion or transgender rights is not driven by the modern feminist or LGBT movements.

Those groups are not sole guardians of these rights. Rather, it reflects the fact that Hinduism itself respects women and has never been antagonistic to the third gender; the western approach to these is alien to India; the factual legislative record shows that the BJP has evolved its own independent, native liberal doctrine.

Arguably, the Anglophone liberal versus conservative dichotomy reflects the lack of evolution of polities in both the US and UK, as compared to India.

This backwardness of their politics shows up in the pronounced polarisation of their local politics. Modern democracies in lands with strong cultural moorings have often tended towards liberal conservatism the BJP in India, the Christian Democrats in Germany, Austria and Italy, the LDP in Japan, the Liberal Party in Australia being examples.

Neither the US nor UK have a political party that is avowedly liberal conservative; the only significant party of the kind in the Anglosphere is the Liberal Party of Australia (LP).

The LPs conservatism in Australia was primarily racial Robert Menzies, who was their Prime Minister from 1949-1966, was a strong supporter of the White Australia policy.

The term Hindu Democratic Party is derived from the most well known mainstream form of liberal conservatism involving religion and native culture as a base Christian democracy in Europe.

But why associate the BJP with a western construct at all? This is a very good question. Several features of the western political spectrum simply do not apply to India. Such terminology cannot be carried over wholesale without any nuance.

However, we live in a global world today. As India grows in power and influence, we interact more with the world. It is important to understand how politics is interpreted by the outside world, and to have a well considered description of Indian political mainstream using a best approximation, even if the association cannot be perfect.

Liberal Conservatism: The Dominant Politics of Strongly Rooted Cultures

An interesting behaviour seen post-World War 2 is that all modern democratic nations that have either strong religious or native cultures, or are the punyabhoomi of major faiths, have all developed liberal conservatism as the principal local political form.

In Germany, Konrad Adenauers CDU came to power in 1949, and dominated German politics, having collectively ruled for over 50 of 70 years.

Besides Angela Merkel and Adenauer, Helmut Kohl and Ludwig Erhard are famous Christian Democrats; Merkel and Erhard were practising Lutheran Protestants, the other two Catholics.

In Italy, Alcide de Gasperis Christian Democrats came to power in 1946, and that party continuously ruled until 1981, and then came back to power again a few times.

In Israel, the Likud Party has been the dominant political force since the 1970s, with leaders like Menachem Begin, Ariel Sharon and now Benjamin Netanyahu being Likud leaders.

In Japan, the Liberal Democratic Party has dominated postwar politics. Everyone from first PM Shigeru Yoshida to Hayato Ikeda famous for driving their postwar economic miracle to Shinzo Abe were LDP leaders.

In Ireland, a Catholic bastion, the Fine Gael and Fianna Fail founded by their longest serving leader Eamon de Valera have dominated politics.

All these parties have something in common they are liberal conservative ones, and the majority classify themselves as Christian Democratic. Italy and Ireland are homes of Catholicism. Germany the home of Protestantism/Lutheranism, Israel the Jewish homeland and Japan the home of Shintoism.

It is not a coincidence that they all developed analogous polity right upon foundation.

The organic rise of the BJP is a similar story. From a more traditionally conservative origin in the Bharatiya Jan Sangh days, it evolved into a more right wing populist entity and rapidly gained a stable vote share of at least 20 per cent in every general election.

Over the past two decades, it has solidified itself as the principal political pole of India.

Neither the US nor UK have a native faith. While there is a Church of England, that is simply the result of a political split King Henry VIII wanted an annulment but the Vatican wouldnt grant one. So he split and created his own church for convenience.

The US is a young frontier country with a stagnant two-party system.

Hindu Democracy: A Liberal Conservative Approach to Dual Imperatives.

Countries that are both a democratic society and the home of a major faith realise that they also safeguard that faith, while simultaneously managing the uniform policy imperatives of being a modern democratic society.

They all maintain legal secular rights for individuals. However, they all make it clear that politics serves the culture, and not the other way around. Therefore, the dominant culture will always receive a first-among-equals treatment by polity, even when individuals from different faiths are treated alike from the perspective of basic law.

This distinction arises from the fact that politics does not hold a land together. Its culture does. India has a dominant culture thats readily visible to everyone from a natural born person to a stranger looking from outside in.

That culture is Dharmic. India safeguards Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism.

The power of Dharmic culture over polity has demonstrably manifested itself in the fact that the moment the artificial basis of Nehruvian western liberal-socialism weakened, the BJPs liberal conservative polity took hold rapidly within less than two decades.

It has since cemented itself under Narendra Modi, while the Congress has been reduced from over 75 per cent of Lok Sabha to under 10 per cent essentially a large regional party.

A country that had no other basis for socio-political cohesion would simply have fallen apart into civil war, as many countries have. Had India lacked such a basis for cohesion, the end of the Congress would have been the end of the political nation state of India.

However, that did not happen. India has instead politically united into the strongest form in several decades. So much so that assorted wags hyperventilate that India is authoritarian.

Why Did The BJPs Emergence Take So Long ?

Given this political history, a question remains if countries with such strong religious and cultural foundations took a common approach, why didnt India do so at its inception?

At this point it might be somewhat clear it almost did. People like Sardar Patel and S P Mukherjee advocated this path.

One can take a look at the dire situation in 1948-50: Muladi massacre, Barisal riots, Anderson bridge massacre, Sitakunda massacre and more just in Bengal, with even more in Punjab.

Each day brought more grim news.

S P Mukherjee, among others, argued strenuously for a population transfer. Objections to this included the difficulty of transferring crores of people, treatment of property and more; those in favour argued that at least non-Muslims must be allowed to move to India.

Nehru opposed this, with fatal consequences for millions of Hindus. The arguments came to a head when S P Mukherjee quit the government during the Nehru-Liaquat Pact and founded BJPs predecessor the BJS.

Mukherjee later died in custody while protesting the imposition of Article 370. Sardar Patels demise preceded Mukherjees. With its brightest leaders gone, the BJP took another generation to become a political force.

It has not looked back since.

The BJP retains a historical memory of its foundation. Its first two acts upon acquiring the 2019 mandate that gave it reasonable strength in both houses of Parliament, were to deal with two items its founder fought over eliminating Article 370 and passing the Citizenship Amendment Act, which serves to fulfill at least partly, the goal of enabling non-Muslim refugees from partition era lands the ability to gain citizenship in India, as Amit Shah explained.

The current position of strength within Indian polity gives the BJP the opportunity to cast the future of Bharat in the terms it should have always been.

This land is the sacred land and guardian of not merely one but multiple great faiths Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism.

The guardianship of this history and culture cannot be sacrificed at the altar of tactically expedient identity politics. There is much to be done, but it must also be acknowledged that the BJP has been true to its history, and remains the only national party that understands and has the dedication to accomplish the political goal of ensuring that India remains a place where its native faiths and culture can flourish.

More:

Hindu Democracy, Punyabhoomi And The Idea Of Bharat - Swarajya

NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh at a funeral for the koala in Ballina in 2019. Image: Tree Faerie

Dailan Pugh

The Koala Wars erupted between the National and Liberal parties last September. While the Nationals are claiming victory over the Liberals, it is the loggers that have prevailed over koalas and local councils.

Ironically the Nationals declaration of war came after the bipartisan inquiry into Koala populations and habitat in NSW released their findings in June 2020 that the regulatory framework for private native forestry does not protect koala habitat on private land, and that without urgent government intervention to protect habitat the koala will become extinct in New South Wales before 2050.

This appeared to inflame the debate about State Environmental Planning Policy (SEPP) Koala Habitat Protection 2019, which applied to private forests, home to more than 60 per cent of NSWs koalas. In early September the Nationals threatened to cross the floor unless the Liberals agreed to their demands to weaken protections for koalas. The Liberals surrendered.

The inquiry reaffirmed that fragmentation and loss of habitat poses the most serious threat to koalas in NSW. Weve known for decades that if we want koalas to survive, we first need to protect where they live.

Back in 1995 a coalition government even adopted a policy to achieve this State Environmental Planning Policy 44 (SEPP 44). It required councils to prepare Koala Plans of Management (KPoMs) to identify where they live, termed core koala habitat, and to protect it in environmental zones.

Help our furry friends to stay alive. Photo supplied

SEPP 44 had a fundamental flaw because it only allowed forests comprising15 per cent of 10 feed-tree species to be identified as core koala habitat, leaving dozens of key feed trees out, meaning vast areas of core koala habitat didnt qualify.

The Local Land Services Act (LLSA) relied upon this mapped core koala habitat to meet its obligations to protect koalas, by prohibiting logging of core koala habitat and generally requiring consent before it can be cleared.

A combination of lack of political will and an intent to make SEPP 44 ineffective, coupled with the difficulty and expense for councils to prepare plans, made SEPP 44 a policy failure.

By 2020 only six KPoMs had been approved, mostly covering just parts of council areas, with just 57,000 ha of core koala habitat identified for protection, after 25 years. And most of this had pre-existing logging approvals that were allowed to continue. Another five finished KPoMs were still waiting for approval, Tweed and Clarence local government areas (LGA) since 2015 and Byron LGA since 2016.

After years of procrastination, in December 2019 cabinet approved the new SEPP (Koala Habitat Protection) 2019 that, while still problematic, rectified many of the definitional problems with SEPP 44, including increasing the number of use trees from 10 to 123.

It came into effect in March 2020, when the guidelines were released. By then the loggers were beginning to freak out because they were concerned that the new rules made it easier for councils to identify core koala habitat, and they wouldnt be allowed to log it.

50 kids from the Byron Community Primary School up to the age of nine were making their voices heard in support of koalas. Photo Saul Goodwin.

NSW Farmers joined in as they wanted to remove constraints on land clearing. They were spooked by the map of likely koala habitat, the Koala Development Application Map, labelled the pink DA Map. It was only intended to limit the area where development applications had to consider koalas, but some Nationals were falsely claiming it was core koala habitat that all required protection.

The key request was that the SEPP be decoupled from the Local Land Services Act, meaning that core koala habitat identified in a KPoM would no longer have logging excluded or require consent before it was cleared.

The Liberals had repeatedly agreed to the decoupling since the SEPP was adopted in 2019, but wanted the Nationals to first put forward alternative protection for koalas from logging and clearing, though they failed to do that.

By mid May 2020 the government had begun the formal process of changing the SEPP and the guidelines, with a focus on removing the pink DA Map.

The release of the koala inquiry report in late June was followed by the release of NSWs 2018 land-clearing statistics, showing that since 2016 clearing of woody vegetation had more than doubled to 60,800 ha. Most worryingly over 50 per cent of this clearing was unexplained, meaning it was unapproved, unassessed, and unknown whether it included koala habitat.

While the Nationals hadnt managed to get the variety of feed trees contributing to core koala habitat reduced from 123 species down to an arbitrary 39, Planning Minister Rob Stokes appeared to have agreed to most of their asks.

Despite this, the Nationals declared the beginning of hostilities in early September 2020, when first Clarence MP Chris Gulaptis and then Coffs Harbour MP Gurmesh Singh claimed they would move to the cross-benches. On 10 September the whole of the National Party piled in and made the same threat, provided they kept all their perks. The Nationals likened it to greyhounds on steroids, considering koalas a threat to their political survival. This was dubbed the Koala Wars.

This tree faerie is a precious koala. Photo Tree Faerie.

The Nationals attack was based on misinformation and lies. For example, the pink DA map, with its inaccuracies, was a primary focus, even though the decision to remove it had been made four months previously. No wonder the Liberals were outraged.

Under the attack the Liberals surrendered, Rob Stokes amended the SEPP to narrow the definition of core koala habitat, and the Nationals were given carte blanche to write their own Local Land Services Amendment (Miscellaneous) Bill, which was introduced to the Lower House on 14 October, 2020.

This was dubbed the Koala Killing Bill as it removed protection for core koala habitat on rural lands while offering no alternative protection, allowed logging to over-ride all councils Local Environment Plans (LEP) and NSW State Environmental Planning Polices, allowed some self-assessed clearing in environmental zones, and doubled logging approvals to 30 years.

It was not just about koalas. The Nationals intent was to allow logging to occur in all councils environmental zones, opening up 167,000 ha of private forests in northeast NSW where greenie local councils currently prohibit logging. Councils existing consent requirements for logging over another 600,000 hectares of private forests was to be removed.

Rob Stokes reputedly also gave the Nationals a promise that councils would not be allowed to protect identified core koala habitat in environmental zones.

While the Liberals supported the Koala Killing Bill, it came to a halt in November when Upper House Liberal Catherine Cusack took a principled stand by crossing the floor and referring the bill to the Upper House Planning and Environment committee for review.

In retribution on 26 November, 2020, Premier Berejiklian did a deal with the Nationals leader John Barilaro to revert to SEPP 44, renamed as SEPP (Koala Habitat Protection) 2020.

Burnt koala habitat following the Black Summer fires of 2019/20. Photo supplied.

To pre-empt the inquiry Planning Minister Rob Stokes and Environment Minister Matt Kean did a deal with Deputy Premier John Barilaro, which was announced on 8 March, 2021, without any detail. The general thrust is to resurrect most provisions of the Koala Killing Bill, including that the 87 per cent of private lands zoned for primary production or forestry will not be subject to SEPP 2019, logging will be allowed to over-ride local environmental plans, and the Minister for Planning will take over councils rights to rezone rural land to an environmental zone.

This time they intend to avoid parliamentary scrutiny by implementing most of this through changes to the SEPP and ministerial directions.

On 17 March the new SEPP (Koala Habitat Protection) 2021 was made. As foreshadowed it does not apply to rural and forestry zones, which comprise 90 per cent (2.4 million ha) of private forests in northeast NSW. The 2020 revision of SEPP 44, with its 10 feed trees and manifest problems, continues to apply to these lands.

In a significant change, KPoMs now also need to be approved by the secretary of the Department of Regional NSW (Barilaros department).

There is worse to come.

Far from being a step forward, Planning Minister Rob Stokess new solution has made the already dysfunctional SEPP process into a farce, reduced already inadequate koala protections, and opened up thousands of hectares of protected environmental zones for logging.

With core koala habitat even more difficult to identify and most of its protection about to be removed, its the height of hypocrisy for Environment Minister Matt Kean to claim this new solution will ensure protections for core koala habitat and colonies across NSW.

View post:

This is how to extinct koalas The Echo - Echonetdaily

Last week, the President and CEO of Providence St. Joseph based in Seattle, Washington received a letter directly from Humboldt County union representatives, bypassing local and state hospital executives and going straight up the chain of command to the national corporate office. In the latest organized response to Providence St. Josephs announcement to shut down the labor and delivery unit at Fortunas Redwood Memorial Hospital, the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) sent the letter dated March 23 to CEO Rod Hochman demanding the controversial plan be halted. The union sees the moves as a misuse of public funds during the COVID-19 pandemic and demands that the potentially terminated jobs be reinstated immediately in the interest of community health. Today, those in opposition to the closure fired another shot across Providences bowa call for action from the community.

Saying the pandemic is being used as a pretense for an increase in profits, part of the letter from NUHW says, Despite the pandemic, Providence received nearly $1 billion in federal stimulus funds and posted a $739 million net profit for 2020. Taxpayers in Humboldt County have helped support Providence during this pandemic. The unions harsh letter continues by emphasizing the concern of its local members, saying, Providence should be thanking Humboldt residents and caregivers, not eliminating a cherished birthing center and cutting jobs.

The statement of opposition by NUHW also rebukes the corporate healthcare groups assertion that the burden of additional travel time and distance to St Joseph in Eureka, as opposed to reaching Fortunas hospital, is inconsequential to women in labor. While birth is a natural process, and does not necessarily require medical intervention by a hospital or doctor, each delivery and birth can be aptly treated as an emergency in either context of home or hospital, simply due to the intensity and urgency involved if not also because of the gravity of consequences for mishap or failure potentially leading to injury or death of a mother and/or infant in a worst-case-scenario.

In the letter addressed to President and CEO of Providence Rod Hochman, the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) advocated on behalf of its 500 local NUHW members employed between both St. Joseph Eureka and Redwood Memorial hospitals, demanding the reversal of the decision as well as reinstatement of all terminated positions. The scathing letter calls for immediate policy changes, and was also copied to the St. Joseph Hospital CEO in Humboldt County, Roberta Luskin-Hawk.

Letter from the National Union of Healthcare Workers

The letter to President and CEO Rod Hochman specifically mentions two jobs that were cut, requesting that those two positions at Redwood Memorial Hospital be reinstated for the good of the community. It is unclear if the jobs slated to be cut are related to the closure of the OB department, but if so, this would contradict the initial press release and subsequent promises by Providence St Joseph Hospitals CEO Roberta Luskin-Hawk that the closure would not result in the loss of any jobs.

Today, on the tails of that letter to the national corporate headquarters of Providences CEO in Seattle, an open letter to the public was released to local media calling attention to what they have found to be disingenuous information, even false promises made in the initial announcement from Providence St. Joseph regarding the planned closure.

According to the public call to action from the Campaign to Save RMHs Birthing Center, contrary to the assurances made by Roberta Luskin-Hawk stating specifically that childbirth services will be transitioned to the obstetrics program at St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka (SJE), incorporating the staff and the legacy of both programs to create a single, high-quality childbirth center and that no layoffs are anticipated related to the consolidation, the letter complains that these promises have proven empty.

Little more than a year ago, an article by NUHW titled Redwood Memorial Hospital Is Stealth-cutting Its Services To Women And Children tried to get the attention of Californias Attorney General of the time, Javier Baccera. The issue of chronic understaffing, as described by a NUHW news blog, was raised as an ongoing issue for women and childrens services at both Redwood Memorial Hospital and St. Joseph Health in Eureka.

The blog notes several previous union-organized pickets in opposition to staffing policies and hospital management practices that left nurses stretched too thin, and compromised patient quality of care. A well-known doctor of over 40 years in the Humboldt area, Donald Baird sent a letter to the Attorney General in January 2020 which called attention to a pattern he recognized as potentially destructive to womens health services in the area- which were protected by order of the attorney general only until the expiration date of the agreement, June 1st, 2021.

An excerpt from NUHWs 2020 article contains a statement written to the California AG Javier Bacerra, from Redwood Memorials Chief of Staff at the time, Dr. Donald Baird, which reads in part as featured in the blog:

I am noticing a clear pattern of systematic termination, loss, and reduction of services at Redwood Memorial Hospital through actions including benign neglect and strategic decisions to relocate and bolster those same services at St. Joseph Eureka Hospital despite the commitments agreed to in the (agreement between the hospital systems and the state) At this point in time, I am concerned that pediatric and obstetric service lines are also imminently in jeopardy. Dr. Donald Baird, January 2020

CEO of Providence St. Joseph in Humboldt County, Roberta Luskin-Hawk has given mixed messages on this topic between 2020 and currently, as we approach the June 1st date which marks the end of the contractual obligation to provide OB services in Fortuna. At a Board of Supervisors meeting in January last year, the CEO was non-committal when asked by County supervisors if jobs at Redwood Memorial hospital were secure in the area of womens health. While the current stance of the CEO maintains that closure of the RMH labor and Delivery unit is in the best interest of the countys stakeholders in healthcare, concrete plans available to the public, in regard to development of a better OB unit, job security and improved quality of care remain elusive.

NUHW, a union which primarily represents hospital support staff and healthcare workers, is not the only powerful union standing in defiance of the plan. With a strongly-worded press release responding to the announced OB Closure, California Nurses Associations (CNA) harsh opposition to the plan includes feedback directly from nurses who are familiar with Fortunas obstetrics program, and peripheral community clinics that support local prenatal care as well. One nurse from Fortunas OB department included in the CNA Press release of March 4th, 2021 asserts that the need for OB services is abundant. She stated,

As a registered nurse who lives and works in this community and who has delivered countless Humboldt County babies, I cannot in good conscience support any effort to cut or reduce family services at Redwood Memorials New Beginnings Family Birth Center, said Adrianne Adams, RN, who works in Redwoods L&D unit and a third-generation Humboldt County resident. In fact, there is plenty that our hospital could do to grow and promote our services to families.

The CNA press release also quotes Leslie Ester, a local RN who previously served as a nurse negotiator both at Providence St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka, and at Redwood Memorial.

CNA represents approximately 3,500 nurses at Providence Health hospitals across the state from Humboldt County to San Bernardino and from Napa to Long Beach. -CNA/NNU statement from March 4th [Photo of Nurse Leslie Ester, CNA rally at St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka, by Ryan Hutson]

In the absence of a written plan of development to review, or any public presentation regarding the planned consolidation, the public is currently unable to clearly assess what changes are in store. With the pending closure of the OB department at Redwood Memorial Hospital in Fortuna, Humboldt County will have only two locations to rely on in cases of emergency labor and delivery- both hospitals being situated in the urban metropolis around Humboldt Bay. People living within the city limits and in the immediate Fortuna area will have an additional 25 minute drive in order to reach emergency OB services, while the expansive areas to the south and east will add that same additional drive to their already long road to travel before they reach the steps of the delivery room in Eureka.

The nearest hospital with obstetrics emergency capacity as an alternative to Providence St. Joseph for Southern Humboldt families would be driving south to Ukiah, a distance of about 90 miles on the freeway.

Read more here:

A Cry for Action From the Campaign to Save RMH's Birthing Center and a Severely Critical Letter Of Opposition From Healthcare Workers Union Are the...

The fight to save a green space in Frome could soon be over after the leader of the district council suggested the land could be withdrawn from housing plans.

Mendip District Councils cabinet voted in early-November 2020 to build more than 160 new homes across five sites in a partnership with Aster Housing including up to 77 homes on the Easthill site in Frome.

The councils cabinetvoted to pause the Easthill elementof the plans in late-November following a backlash from local residents, who want the site to be preserved as an asset for the whole community.

Council leader Ros Wyke has now indicated that her Party (currently the largest on the council) is minded to withdraw support for any housing scheme on the site meaning the land can be protected.

The councils cabinet is expected to make a final decision on the matter after the local elections in May.

Cllr Wyke laid out the intentions of her Party in an email to the Friends of Easthill Field campaign group on Sunday 21st March 21.

She said, Following a review of land at Easthill, Frome, the Liberal Democrat group are committed to retaining the site in council ownership for use as cemetery extension land.

We are, therefore, minded to withdraw support for any further development of the exploratory plans to develop the land as a potential site for the social and affordable housing programme. This position was taken in recognition of strong local concerns about the sites ecological importance.

We are grateful to the residents of Frome who shared their concerns with us and we want to make it clear that weve listened to all views.

Cllr Wyke said the decision would still have to be taken through the proper democratic channels, but reassured residents that the Party would not go back on this decision.

She stated, For clarity, as things stand, this position is not one of a temporary nature, but one that will be maintained for the entire duration of this current administration.

We will continue to work to improve the supply of much-needed social and affordable housing for the people of Mendip.

The remaining Frome site, which will be taken forward by Aster (planning permission pending) is at North Parade (up to 17 homes on the rear part of the existing car park).

Bharati Pardhy of the Friends of Easthill Field has welcomed the news through posts on the groups official Facebook page.

She said, Since the Liberal Democrats are the ruling group and the Cabinet is entirely made up of their councillors, the vote seems likely to be in favour of dropping all plans to develop Easthill.

We are cautiously optimistic at this fantastic new development in the campaign to save Easthill.

The cabinet votecomes as a direct result of our campaigning, along with cross-party support within the council.

We are fully committed to continuing to work to secure Easthill for nature and for the community of Frome and Mendip and to work to safeguard it in perpetuity.

The group previously attempted to secure the Easthill site as an asset of community value which proved unsuccessful after the council ruled the bid did not meet the necessary criteria.

The council said a formal decision would not be taken until the end of May due to the local elections due to take place on May 6th.

During this pre-election period formally known as purdah councils are restricted on announcing any new policies or spending, lest it should prejudice or influence the outcome of the vote.

A spokesperson said, The statement by the Lib Dem group that they are minded to withdraw support for any further development of the exploratory plans to develop the land at Easthill, Frome, for social and affordable housing, has been noted by the council.

Any such action will need to go through the usual, formal channels to be officially and democratically determined.

Given the announcement,an item will be listed on the forward plan and the agenda for the first available cabinet meeting following the pre-election period, on Wednesday 26th May 2021.

Picture:The Easthill site in Frome by Bharati Pardhy.

Read the rest here:

Easthill Field victory in sight - Frome Times