What a day!

Hi everyone,

Well this morning I started my quest to find out what Councillors attended the 4 May meeting and which way they voted. Turns out the DLRCOCO website is wrong, there aren't 21-22 Councillors in the Dun Laoghaire area - there are 18!

Five voted against the car parking spaces:
Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Fine Gael)
Niamh Bhreathnach (Labour)
Denis O'Callaghan (Labour)
Carrie Smyth (Labour)
Richard Boyd Barrett (People Before Profit)

Unfortunately eight voted for car parking spaces to be put on Newtownsmith/Sandycove Green:
John Bailey (Fine Gael)
Maria Bailey (Fine Gael)
Donal Marren (Fine Gael)
Barry Ward (Fine Gael)
Jane Dillon Byrne (Labour)
Stephen Fitzpatrick (Labour)
Victor Boyhan (Independent)

There's one more Councillor who voted for the parking spaces, I'll update who that is tomorrow.

Because so many Fine Gael and Labour Councillors voted for the parking spaces, I started emailing their parties first. Emails went to Eamon Gilmore of Labour and Sean Barrett of Fine Gael on Friday.

To their credit, both TDs came back to me today. Eamon telephoned and advised he'd be speaking to the Labour Councillors about the vote, and Sean advised via email that he would do the same with the Fine Gael Councillors. I really hope they will look at the campaign website and petitions and see how important this issue is to everyone and that the issue needs to be revisited.

What I believe we need is for the current vote to be overturned, and for a full Public Consultation to be instigated before any changes are made to Newtownsmith/Sandycove Green. This will ensure that the needs of the whole borough are taken into account, rather than just a few residents. The green belongs to everyone!

But in order for our voices to be heard, everyone needs to contact their Councillors. They are all listed on the http://www.savesandycovegreen.com/ website. Tell them this is an important issues for you, and it's one that you'll take into consideration when selecting your Councillor in the next election. These are our democratically elected Councillors, they have to act in a democratic way!

Thanks,
Lou x

Check In - 16 May

Evening all,
Hope you had lovely weekends and that you're not too depressed about the prospect of Monday tomorrow. I'm not, but that's only because I have a list of councillors numbers that I'll be calling all day - hopefully we can have details on all of the votes by Tuesday, when this campaign will be a week old.

Even for five days we're doing so well, here are the latest figures:
Facebook Group: 1916 members
Online Petitions: 605 signatures

Hopefully we can get a few more signatures, but still, what a great result in five days! Here's to next week being as successful!

Also, the logo for the campaign is officially in the works so look out for it!

Night all,
Lou xx

The FB group is gathering pace

We're nearly at 2,000 members! It's great that we're getting so much traction on the group, before it's even a week old... :-)

One thing I need to work on is the petitions, there are two and while we've broken 600 signatures today, we're still lagging behind the facebook page, and it's likely that the council will lend more weight to the petition. The petitions are here, please sign and forward the URLs to your friends and family. I'll be doing some more petition promotion this coming week!
www.ipetitions.com/petition/savesg
www.ipetitions.com/petition/savesgreen

Lou x

Check in - 15 May

Inebriated greetings to you all...

Making serious progress:
FB Page: 1,580 Members
Petitions: 583 Signatures

Look out over the next week for details of your councillors and how they voted...
See www.savesandycovegreen.com for more details!

Thanks for helping us break 1,500 members...
Lou xx

Check In - 14 May

Another great day everyone!

Facebook Page - 1203 Members
Online Petitions - 540 Signatures
So pleased we've broken the 1,ooo threshold on the page and the 500 threshold on the signatures on the same day! This campaign was only started last Tuesday, 11 May, so it's a fantastic achievement and I want to thank you all again... :-)

Damien Rice has lent his support to the campaign! Please see the website for the statement in full
I've spoken to Senator David Norris who has agreed to sign our campaign.
Emails have been sent to Eamon Gilmore of the Labour Party and Senator Eugene Regan and TD Sean Barrett of Fine Gael, urging them to support us.
I've also started reaching out to some local media, including The Right Hook and The Last Word radio shows, and some local papers.
I will be speaking to Richard Boyd Barrett of People Before Profit tomorrow and will hopefully gain his support.

Night all,
Lou x

Tappity Tappity...

Hi guys,

Phew - I have done a LOT of typing today!

I have updated http://www.savesandycovegreen.com/ with details of all the DLRCOCO Councillors and the detail of their votes where I know them. I'll be calling them individually over the next few days and hopefully will be able to have details of all of the votes and absentions by the end of next week.

Please call your local Councillor and tell them that you support the campaign - hopefully this will help them change their minds!

Thanks,

Lou x

Website Up and Running

Hurray! The website is officially up and running.

The URL is www.savesandycovegreen.com - please take a look and let me know what you think. It's a work in progress so please check regularly for updates!

Lou x