THERE was an unpleasant incident in the council chamber last week which deserves a little more attention.
During discussion about a planned Ipswich Cemetery heritage project, Cr Jim Madden thought it was the right forum to have a go at a Council officer who previously gave advice he didn’t agree with.
CEO Sonia Cooper didn’t approve of Madden’s comments and quickly called for respect for the officer.
While he declared a personal interest owing to having a distant relative buried in the cemetery, Madden was clearly not happy about a decision not to allow families to have replacement headstones for those destroyed decades ago.
Council has been working to right some terrible wrongs which occurred in the 1970s.
Many headstones from several denominations were removed from the eastern side and placed in the northeastern corner all because of a desire at the time to make maintenance easier.
Included were Aboriginal graves, and sadly there are limited records from the 1850s.
The heritage plan calls for a new memorial walk and garden on the eastern side by relocating some remaining headstones, with the final design still to be decided before construction begins in 2027.
Several tasteful interpretive signs are also proposed for the memorial garden which will attempt to bring the 1970s saga to a respectful conclusion.
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