Your locally owned 5000 copies circulating in Toodyay, West Toodyay, Goomalling, Postage Bolgart, Calingiri, Morangup, Northam, Coondle, Hoddys Well, community newspaper June 2019 Paid Wattening, Dewars Pool, Culham, Bejoording, Nunile, Julimar, Bakers Est. 1902 Hill, Clackline, Wooroloo, Wundowie, Gidgegannup and local districts. Edition 380 Australia Fibre Festival and Moondyne magic capture town spirit Prosecutor Tom Findlay give the thumbs down to Moondyne Joe (Jacob Robertson) at his trial last month. Fibre Festival Junior Mad Hatter winner Matthew (above) and fashion parade. Secret council backflip reverses CEO vote Michael Sinclair-Jones Department Director General Duncan Ord 8.3 of the Local Government Act. and State Local Government Minister David The inquiry was “still underway and a Code of Conduct by publishing derogatory A SECRET council vote behind closed doors Templeman. report will be prepared in due course” the statements in the ratepayer-funded April has allowed Shire CEO Stan Scott to keep A spokesperson for the department said spokesperson said. 2018 Toodyay Community Newsletter. his highly paid job for another year instead that the Shire of Toodyay remained one of In a separate development, Mr Scott Both have refused to apologise and told of losing it when his contract expires next five WA councils subject to an “authorised and Shire President Brian Rayner were last month’s council meeting that it had no month. inquiry” ordered by the State under Section found last year to have breached the Shire power to order them to apologise. The extraordinary backflip, which was Continued Page 5. described the next day on ABC radio’s Breakfast program as “very strange, sudden Quest to uncork winery cellar history and unusual” (see Page 9) comes in the Toodyay Farmers Market middle of a formal State Government inquiry LOCALLY made colonial bricks marked with Sunday June 16 into the Shire of Toodyay. a unique ‘J–R’ recess or ‘frog’ indentation on It caught some councillors by surprise after their laying surface are being sought locally their 5-4 decision in March “to not offer Mr to help date an old cellar at Coorinja Winery, Scott a new contract of employment”. about 5km south of Toodyay. this month A government inquiry based on ‘reasonable Coorinja owner Michael Wood is keen to classifieds 29 suspicion’ local government laws and hear from anyone with other buildings made regulations were breached during Mr Scott’s from similar bricks as his winery prepares to emergency services 7 current and previous contract as shire CEO celebrate its centenary in August. environment 20,21 was announced last December. Mr Wood said the J R initials were used It followed 10 months’ official monitoring by colonial brick-maker John Riley, whose health 30 and a warning that the shire had shown “not bricks have also been found in Culham. letters 4 only a lack of understanding of the provisions He believed the bricks were made from public notices 29 of (Freedom of Information) legislation but local clay and baked in earth on the ground also a propensity to misinterpret other instead of fired in kilns. puzzles 28 legalities and procedures”. Beth Frayne, from the Toodyay Historical sport 31 Three Perth investigators were reported last Society, has written that J R bricks with a month to be continuing their interviews with wide groove between the initials (left, above) trades & services 22-28 local ratepayers while gathering evidence Two locally fired ‘J– R’ bricks used to build were made before 1867, and those with a when & where 29 for a report to WA Local Government Toodyay’s historic Coorinja Winery. narrow groove (below) after 1869. Page 2 THE TOODYAY HERALD June 2019 Please note our email addresses Advertising: [email protected] The Toodyay Herald is a free monthly newspaper published and owned by a not-for- Articles and stories: [email protected] profit incorporated association - The Toodyay Herald Inc. Contributions via email or on flash drive are preferred. There is no charge for articles that appear in the paper. Deadlines for the next edition are listed below with the paper on the streets in the first week of each month except in January when there is no edition. Ol’ Blind Joe All advertising should be emailed to [email protected]. Editorial contributions and photographs should be emailed to [email protected]. Shining a light Photographs for publication should be at least 500kb in file size to ensure quality reproduction in the newspaper. Stirling Hamilton Any council deliberations about CEOs always seem to be behind closed doors. SUBSCRIPTIONS IT HAS come to my attention that some Us ratepaying peasants, electors and Subscriptions are $33 (postage and packaging) per year (11 issues). Please send a cheque folks see The Toodyay Herald as being scribes are not allowed to be privy to the to PO Box 100, Toodyay 6566. overly critical of the shortcomings oSf our backroom deals that determine our fate. esteemed local shire council. Openness, accountability and MEMBERSHIP Well heavens to Murgatroyd, to Betsy, transparency are not attributes that seem Membership of The Toodyay Herald is available at $15 ($12 concession) per financial and any other bewildered bystanders. year, with members entitled to free advertising worth $15 annually. Please send your to be understood by most of our overlords. A little secret my wife Truth always tells Our shire won’t even talk publicly to the name, phone number and residential, postal and email address with your membership me is that a journalist’s prime duty is to fee to PO Box 100, Toodyay 6566 or leave it at 92B Stirling Terrace, Toodyay. peasants except through a ratepayer-funded dig, discover, deliberate and disseminate. monthly ‘newsletter’ that councillors have COMMITTEE OF MANAGEMENT ADVERTISING I’ve been observing local council matters no say in even when it breaches their own for a decade now, writing for our paper code of conduct, as in April last year. President: Peter Ruthven Sandra Harms: 9572 9061 or and serving as a volunteer on successive But don’t hold your breath waiting for an Vice President: Andrew McCann [email protected] Herald committees for seven years. Secretary: Heather Appleby Heather Appleby 0419 906 083 apology because that’s not how our civic Treasurer: Beth Ruthven I can attest with all sincerity that I have leaders operate. Members: ACCOUNTS never detected nor witnessed a hidden I feel like the proverbial ‘stunned Sandra Harms, Stirling Hamilton, agenda of malice, prejudice or bias against mullet’ watching them parade as doyens Beth Ruthven 0429 896 860 anyone anywhere or at any time. Allan Gregory, Peter Harms, [email protected] of representative democracy. Ieva Tomsons, Barb Dadd Digging, exposing and calling public I shall no longer lament the past though NEWS & GENERAL INQUIRIES figures to account is not for everyone. PRODUCTION in my opinion, the sooner their shadows 9574 2106 - 0419 906 083 It can ruffle feathers and make good cease to darken these fair valleys, the Editor: Michael Sinclair-Jones burghers squirm but would the world be a Admin/Advertising: Heather Appleby [email protected] better. Design/Layout: Sandra Harms better place if ostriches ruled the roost? Pusillanimous Editorial/Layout: Ieva Tomsons toodyayherald.com.au. We consider ourselves a cut above the rest and strive to be the best damn little NOW, I’VE got bigger fish to fry despite DISTRIBUTION paper in these parts. the fact that my editor suffers from The Toodyay Herald has a distribution of 5000 copies, with copies delivered to letter Circulation is up 60 per cent in five years pusillanimous provincialism and doesn’t boxes in Toodyay, and Morangup. Copies are also available at roadhouses and businesses while other local papers have gone bust – think Toodyayites are ready for the big bad in Toodyay, Northam, Bolgart, Bakers Hill, Calingiri, Clackline, Gidgegannup, so we must be doing something right. world beyond our shire borders. Goomalling, Wooroloo and Wundowie. Now, one of the most mind-numbingly I’ve spent thousands of hours studying Printed by Rural Press boring things you can do on earth is to warfare and the geopolitical manoeuvres spend untold hours studying council occurring in the dark fog of the US THANK YOU agendas and minutes. hegemony machine. Hidden craftily and inscrutably among Many thanks to the volunteers who helped produce this edition of The Toodyay Herald: America is the master of lying to get what ten thousand pages of crap you’ll find an it wants, especially in warfare. Joseph Fernandez (Legal), Beth and Peter Ruthven, Jean Witcombe, Richard Grant, occasional nugget of gold and realise what It broke every treaty ever made with its Allan Gregory, Barb Dadd and Colleen Sheehan. our civic leaders are really up to. indigenous citizens and provoked Mexico Years ago I caught them slipping four in 1846 so it could invade and steal more ADVERTISING little words “and leading up to” into a land. planning document. RATES - NO GST IS APPLICABLE Specifications It claimed in the 1898 Spanish-American It meant that if you subdivided a property, The cost of a casual display advertisement is Print-ready material is required to be supplied War that the warship USS Maine had been $4.15 per column cm (NB Column width is at a minimum resolution of 300 pixels per inch you no longer paid pro rata only for the blown up by Spanish saboteurs when it 61.5mm.) at the size the advertisement is to be printed, frontage but also to seal gravel roads knew it was an onboard accident, and then Full Page: Mono - $664.00; Colour - $715.50. eg: full-page, half-page etc. leading up to it.