Mayor to write letter to minister acknowledging impact of mining exploration application to Albany’s west

A first council-wide show of support for a campaign against mining west of Albany will be sent in the form of a letter to the mines minister following motions being tabled by Cr Stephen Grimmer on Tuesday. The council went back and forth for more than an hour before ultimately deciding to send a letter to Mines Minister Bill Johnston and to start developing a policy position to assess mining tenement applications relating to City of Albany-controlled land. Originally, Cr Grimmer had planned to have the three parts of his motion considered all at once before splitting them into two separate parts — one focused on having the mayor write a letter to the minister and the other on policy development. The council voted 9-4 in favour of having the mayor write to the Mines Minister in acknowledgement of the stress and impact the mining exploration application between Albany and Denmark was having on residents. When putting the motion, Cr Grimmer said listening to local people and preserving the natural environment were the top of his priorities when he put his name up to run for council. He said this was the issue he had the most correspondence about and was well aware of the stress it was causing. “One of the phone calls I can remember best was one two days after Christmas from a young mother of four children who had recently moved down here to be with her extended family,” he said. “She, along with a number of other residents, had received a letter at 6am on Christmas morning from the proponent’s lawyer which was really trying to intimidate them to withdraw their objection to the proposal. “I’ve been through this kind of thing before and I do understand the stress it is causing and I just want the minister to understand this is causing a lot of stress.” Cr Malcolm Traill said sending a letter would be an opportunity for the council to demonstrate it was listening to the community. “We don’t have a lot of jurisdiction, but we have our emotions and our residents’ needs to take into account,” he said. Cr Thomas Brough, Cr Chris Thomson, Cr Amanda Cruse and Cr Sandie Smith voted against a letter being sent. Cr Brough said he felt the stress of affected residents, but that he was elected to represent with his head as well as his heart and that he had concerns about the council being co-opted to make “emotional gestures”. “I don’t want to set a precedent where every group of genuinely stressed and genuinely upset disaffected parts of the community approach council to say please write a letter on my behalf outlining our grievances,” he said. “That’s their grievances, they are not the grievances of the mayor and they are not the grievances of council.” Cr Smith said she believed the argument of those who had contacted the council should lay “firmly at the door of the State Government representative in Albany, not with the local government”. Some councillors expressed concerns about whether a letter would impact potential mining projects in other areas which were looked upon more favourably, while others said they were matters that could be separated. Cr Greg Stocks said they were talking about a specific area between Albany and Denmark. “There are some pretty desperate people here, all they want is you to add your voice through the Mayor to say we acknowledge that there are impacts here,” he said. “We are most certainly not talking about a blanket ban over the whole City of Albany.” Many members of the community who have been actively campaigning against the mining exploration in the area were in the gallery at Tuesday’s meeting.