Greater Shepparton City Council elections are fast approaching and the scaremongering is well and truly on.

Cr John Gray's latest offerings "Let's keep things in perspective" (Shepparton News September 26, 2005) indicates it is desperation time - not only for Cr Gray but also for Crs McCamish, Hazelman, McNeill and Ryan.

In regard to Parkside Gardens, during the past two years Cr Gray has, along with the above-named councilors, put out a variety of costings for developing gardens at Parkside Gardens.

He started at $1 million, then it was a five percent annual increase in rates, followed up by, very recently, $2 million and now he is on $1 million plus per hectare.
All of this is unsubstantiated.

With such a wide variance in these figures, how much credence can we give to any of
Cr Gray utterances?

I am still waiting for the council "spin" on why Greater Shepparton ranked 78 out of a possible 79 as the most discontented community in Victoria.

This was determined in a Victorian Government report titled
Indicators of Community Strength at the Local Government Area Level in Victoria.

This report ranked all municipalities from one to 79. Greater Shepparton finished very low down, being in 75th position.

Incidentally, all those neighbouring councils that Cr Gray listed - namely Wangaratta, Benalla, Campaspe, Moira, Wodonga, and Strathbogie - in showing how good we are in budgetting, finnished well above us.

Wangaratta was best, finishing at 19, with Wodonga being the lower of this group with a ranking of 48 (well above us).

Our above-named councillors have never understood that there is more to a community than new buildings, circuses and dollars.

Bill Brown

Chairman Greater Shepparton Botanic Gardens Association.