Who wants to know the truth about Piles Creek Somersby?

Five people died in Piles Creek Somersby. They died because Gosford City Council failed to repair and maintain those corrugated steel culvert pipes which it became responsible for maintaining when the road became councils responsibility. The latest news is two eight foot diameter steel pipes in the upper reaches of Mooney Mooney Creek where it runs beneath Peats Ridge Road. These two pipes have been lined with concrete twice to protect the bottom of the pipes from rotting away with rust. Concrete is an often used method of preventing the abrasive action of gravel and the high Ph of Hawkesbury water from taking a toll on the galvanised corrugated fabricated steel pipes. The point of writing this is The NSW State Coroner recalled council General manager Peter Wilson and three others to expand on evidence they had given earlier during the inquiry into the deaths of the Bragg and Holt family members. What is confronting about that evidence is the council management gave the Coroner to understand council had no knowledge of the use of concrete to protect the steel pipes , because they alleged the RTA did not inform the council of the policy they had put in place, in response to a culvert collapse which had occurred down near Wollongong. Our local News Limited paper The Express Advocate informed its readers that the council checked its roads and structure twice each year. If that is true then in the years Gosford City Council was responsible for the two pipes in Mooney Mooney Creek beneath Peats Ridge Road they will have inspected them at least sixteen times. These two steel pipes reveal evidence I have photographed and circulated to main stream media. Evidence which raises important questions about just what it was the coroner was led to understand by the council and others. If it is true the council made two inspections each year for around eight years the corporation will have been aware of the use of concrete to protect these types of pipes. I have photographs which I have supplied to main stream media, published and displayed. Edward James POB 3024 Umina 2257 0243419140
I have been to the Peats Ridge Road site again today. I have photos which I cant seem to post up on the new indy media site. These photos are important because the bought and paid for media have been given access to this information but they wont publish evidence steel pipes which Gosford City Council had accepted responcibility for were lined with concrete not once but twice. Why are so many politicians happy to accomadate such abuse of due process lies from named elected reps and systemic corruotion? Local Greens Councilor Peter Freewater said he would run for the seat of Robertson because he had "had enough political corruption and immoral governance of the area" Below the fold page one Peninsula News 25 January 2010. Gosford City Council an elected corporate entity was comfortable putting a developement application before ratpayers which was identified by one of their own employees as a compleat fabrication and a sack of lies. Since them successive politicians have remained dumb and inactive when it comes to addressing the rort their political parties insist on accomadating. My own personal experiance has been mirriored in the way the surviving members of the Bragg and Holt families have been treated. If any7one wants copies of photos which expose the neglect identified as human error by the state call me.

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Comments

Agreed, Gosford Council to blame for those deaths.
All they where concerned about was saving bucks.
I attended an ALP Branch Party meeting in Woy Woy just after that accident, where a member of the then Gosford Labor Council blamed the State member Ms Andrews for the tragedy and the ownership of the road.
Gosford Council was actually responsible for the road and the deaths of those people.
The Lord Mayor of Gosford (at the time of the accident) should have been held accountable.

Thank you for bringing out the truth. If you hadn't, it would never have been known.

It is not who wants to know the truth, but our right to be told the truth.

Thanks Edward for reminding us of the incompetent and lazy Local Governments, including it's councillors and mayors that the NSW public have. People who refuse to acknowledge the role they play or should I say the role they are elected to play. A role that is to serve the best interests of the community rather than to ignore and/or coverup the maladministration within these Councils.

Maladministration that causes grief and loss in so many ways and to so many left unaddressed to rear it's ugly head over and over again.

It is also those at the helm of a Council that are ultimately to be held fully accountable.

It is very hard to attract attention of mainstream print media because they enjoy a huge amount of advertising dollars from local councils which is in conjunction with being in the media release loop. In the last twelve months I have spent over fifteen thousand dollars publishing what I believe to be evidence of wrongdoing. I believe it is a waste of time taking a political argument into a court of law. I am not frightened of the courts but it is a user pays system and not a place for the poor. On the other hand I am also aware truth is not always a defence to defamation. I have not read the revised defamation act. But I have continued to name politicians and identify their lies in full and half page ads. I have these ads in a format which I can email to interested parties. I know I am not alone in seeking honest representative government. But I do understand so many people who have been bullied and stood over. Have more sense than me and just move on, because they can see the fight for rights with unrepresentative government is almost always more damaging that the initial wrong. When you discover the politician you go to is almost always tied to the party and the party will dictate how you get on. While I pushed for the sacking of Gosford City Council and still do, I was often the brunt of media attacks which were supportive of the dodgy council and dismissive of me. After members of the Bragg and Holt families died as a direct result of the collapse of the road into Piles Creek at Somersby. I was in a position to and do expose council for what it is. I am still trying to finish what I started. I am tired and worn out, the same thing is happening to me as happens to hundreds of others who make the mistake of believing that truth is all you need to expose and the rest will fall into place. I know MM a person much more articulate that me, has engaged Canterbury City Council on his mothers behalf. It is a shame that the Canterbury ratepayers can’t understand that their councillors are not representing them properly, there is a conflict of interest Councillors were elected to represent ratepayers not management and ratepayer’s money is being spent providing a shield for management nonfeasance, misfeasance, and more recently malfeasance. Where people should have been disciplined it seems they were not, following that perhaps others who did not do their jobs should have been sacked, and now we can follow the erection of legal fences which are attempting to hide the perceived wrongdoing which is now compounding those earlier errors of judgement, or denial of due process / natural justice. Hornsby Council is another example of this abusive process; I hear there are now calls at the level of Premier and Cabinet to investigate the Department of Local Government because it seems to be part of the problem. Federal State and Local governments are all using our tax dollars to pay lawyers to keep honest people from engaging in and directing our democratic process. There is no doubt good honest taxpayers are being trampled by dishonest politicians and the party hierarchy who are with their cashed up cronies actively trashing our democratic process. The community archive resource of Sydney Independent Media has been destroyed at a time when three elections in NSW within sixteen months are on the way that archive material will have been invaluable to individual non-politically aligned activist it gone. I would be happy to reload photos to support what I write but the new site is just beyond me.
Edward James 0243419140

This is related to your story Edward and mentioned in your last post.

The NSW Ombudsman has issued its report that exposes the lies and failures of the senior management of Canterbury City Council and its Public Service Medal recipient General Manager.

The first of many recommendations is that Canterbury City Council issue an apology to the Mallones.

How lucky this PSM awarded GM and the Mayor must feel knowing it was the NSW Ombudsman that exposed their failures rather than the coroners office.

As you are aware, it was July 2003 that council was advised of the serious threat to property and people but this Council basically did nothing. It is now 2010 and what did Canterbury City Council do? It did nothing other than sit and watch and an elderly widow have her life destroyed yet for the last fews it had clearly been stating it did quite the opposite.

You have a lot of critics out there Edward, but while these Councils our managed the way the NSW Ombudsman found this Council managed, then they will continue to do what they do. So, those critics need to bite their tongues hard because not only are they wrong but they are the ones who benefit in the long term. And if they simply assisted people those people in need rather than being critical, then the benefit to all would occur much sooner than later.

Canterbury City Council believed they could treat the people they serve with what we the public describe as pure and utter lies. They even believed they could lie while under investigation of the Ombudsman and they thought they would get away with it.

Canterbury City Councils unreasonable and improper conduct induced on Mrs Mallone and many others though they are yet to realise (18 Unit Owners) has now been exposed by the NSW Ombudsman.

This Canterbury City Council General Manager, Mayor, Councillors, MP and senior management should hang their heads in utter shame.

Has Mrs Mallone's nightmare ended? We are far from the end but it will end. If not the full NSW Ombudsman report, the pages relating to the findings and recommendations will be posted soon.

There is plenty more to come on this issue Edward.

Thank you for letting our readers know of the NSW Ombudsmans findings. I have been trying for weeks now to get anyone interested in the evidence buried beneath Peats Ridge Road.Those two eight foot pipes are proof that gosford council has mislead the coronor. Corrupt and dysfunctional councils are accomadated by state level politicians on both sides of parliament.
That will change when grass roots voters realise we do have the power to shake the base of politics.