Under the headline "Brooks hits back at accusations" Ms Brooks defended herself against an accusation that she did not declare a conflict of interest at the council's last development services meeting. Apparently a brouhaha erupted after the meeting because "Ms Brooks rejected a motion put forward by senior officers in regard to the Bay Central (sic) development."
Ms Brook's partner runs a business at Centro and in her defence she said the decision was not about the actual extension or application but the process that would be used to decide the application. She acknowledged there would have been a conflict of interest if the decision was about the actual shopping centre. Fair enough, However the story did not end there.
To further legitimise the story, the Chronicle included mayoral candidate Paul Hefferan and his behaviour when he was a councillor. He left the Council Chamber if issues came up for debate over development at Pialba, as he should. At the time he owned two shops in Main Street.
This was an unnecessary adjunct to a story in which Ms Brooks had clearly set out her position on what constituted a conflict of interest. That position was no different from that of Mr Hefferan.
If the accusations were legitimate then why weren't the three councillors allegedly making them interviewed or named in the story? Had that happened the story would have had legs.
Once again the Chronicle has used the rather tawdry journalistic device of cobbling together rumour/gossip/innuendo. Then in order to legitimise it enough to use in a story, the rumour/gossip/innuendo is upgraded to accusations and the subject of the accusations is asked to answer them. The story can then be written from the angle of the subject defending against these accusations, which leads the reader to suspect there must be something in it. The subject loses credibility in the eyes of the public, whatever their response.
I can only conclude that Councillor Brooks is not on the rumoured list of preferred candidates.
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