Beach balls-up
IT is now 10 weeks on from Salt cafe’s Australia Day party when its bean bags released polystyrene balls onto Port Beach.
As the Herald reported, the day after the party beach users (including us) spent hours removing the white snow from the water’s edge.
Nearly every day since then we have picked up stray balls all the way along the beach from in front of the cafe to as far north as the Leighton pedestrian bridge—1.5km from the release site. Today two of us picked up 60 balls! I wonder how many have been eaten by seabirds and fish?
Hopefully a lesson has been learnt by beach users, party organisers and council regulators. Bean bags on beaches and waterways can create a disaster so please don’t take them there!
Russ Hobbs
Holland St, Fremantle

Hot ‘n’ cross
THERE I was on Good Friday, tucking into a hot cross bun and reading the latest edition of the Herald.
By the time I had finished reading I was thoroughly depressed. Do they put something in the water in the council chambers? Your front page headline, that a “surf simulator” is to be built at Port Beach, hit me between the eyes!
Had nobody responsible for this grand plan noticed there was actually a beach, complete with sand and surf, just over the dunes where they plan to build it?
Then I read of the plan to sell the carpark at the rec centre and the whole Samson rec centre.
Perhaps we will all have to cycle or walk if we want to swim in Freo and the good residents of Samson don’t need any recreational facilities. Maybe the mayor and councillors need palatial new offices to keep them happy much more than we, the long-suffering public require these facilities.
Finally the six-storey hotel at Leighton Beach…..what can I say? Needless to say I read the mayor and CEO’s exercise in turd-polishing in Thinking Allowed and put the lid on it. What will become of the lovely town we all love?
Geoff Dunstone
Carrington St, Palmyra
The Ed says: If Jesus can come back from the dead you can come back from being a glum-bum. Shouldn’t take you three days, neither.

Don’t be distracted
HOW predictable! The City of Fremantle lynch mob strikes again (Herald Thinking Allowed, April 4, 2015).
CEO Graeme Mackenzie and mayor Brad Pettitt have publicly vilified me simply in order to distract attention away from the questions they desperately want to avoid.
The question residents should be starting to ask is “what is it that the mayor and CEO are so desperate to conceal from the public?”.
It must be pretty serious for them to mount such an extraordinary attack on my character. My current questions are just the tip of the iceberg!
At no point in my Thinking Allowed article the week before, nor in any correspondences with the council have I criticised the proposed Kings Square design, the need for new facilities, or the city’s vision for the future.
I challenge Mackenzie and Pettitt to demonstrate otherwise.
My perspective, vision, mindset, point of view, and so on, has never been expressed in public or private regarding whether the Kings Square development should proceed. The mayor, CEO and councillors have never met me or spoken with me, and frankly do not know anything about me. I have done this intentionally because I knew they would eventually resort to “playing the man”.
The Thinking Allowed article from the mayor and CEO have criticised me for a perspective I have never held or expressed. They fabricated a position for me and then attacked me for holding it. Priceless!
They have also credited me with contacting the office of Peter Tinley MP, which they know is incorrect. It’s a great outcome that Tinley’s questions have been put to state parliament, but the Fremantle Residents and Ratepayers Association (FRRA) has worked tirelessly to achieve that outcome, and deserves the credit.
It looks like the Herald has had a good rummage through the city’s accounts, which resulted in last week’s excellent article “Samson Rec to pay for new HQ”. It’s definitely worth a read.
Martin Lee
Fremantle

Welcome upgrade
MELVILLE council is upgrading Melville Beach Road in Applecross.
During construction the road was completely dug up and replaced with new road base.
The council closes the road to vehicular traffic during working hours; it also places a sign asking cyclists to use the bike path.
Some cyclists choose to ignore the sign and ride on the road base; I have seen two cyclists outside my home with punctures from the sharp stones.
After the road is completed, the council is going to widen the excellent existing bike path. A large section of Melville Beach Road has the luxury of a bike and a separate walking path. I would like to see both paths marked (walking or cycle).
It should be a traffic offence for a cyclist to ride on the road when a cycle path exists. Councils spend a lot of money on bike paths to keep cyclists safe, please use them.
Frank Granger
Melville Bch Rd, Applecross