Usually, something is given up, sometimes something is won and oftentimes a great deal is overlooked.

The decision by the council to allow, notionally allow, a grand scheme to proceed towards some kind of resolution in the fullness of time says more about civic power than it ever might about a hotel with tourism potential.

Don Defenderfer's concerns, thinking about amenity, prettiness, and what is thought to belong to a citizenry, rings true.

Yet somehow the issues are more expansive, more extensive, than aesthetics and public amenity.

When the penny actually drops it'll be realised that $50 million might well turn into unknown gazillions and then something might give. When someone gets down to doing the geophysics, dealing with eco-sustainability, confronting the risks of environmental change, researching the technologies, the projected outcome might yet change.

Don Defenderfer might be right, skyscrapers may find their placidness elsewhere and that might even be realised, albeit a bit later on.

On the evidence, what is actually on paper might never be built, or even be buildable.

So much for civic authority.

I MUST agree wholeheartedly with Bill Carney (The Examiner, June 14).

It does seem as though there is a competition amongst architects in Launceston to see who can design the ugliest building.

I'm not against progress but surely in such a beautiful heritage city, new buildings need to blend sympathetically with the existing buildings. Just because these investors have unlimited funding doesn't give them the right to fill our city with eyesores.

On a completely different matter, but also concerning funding we neither have the population or the funding to fund an AFL team. If that amount of money can be found surely it should go into the health system or combat homelessness.

AT peak hour, it has become impossible to turn right into Wellington Street from Howick Street beside McDonald's, without breaking the law.

The Westbound traffic flow is so constant that only one car can get around at a time, and even then, it's through an amber light.

The installation of a right turn arrow would alleviate the situation.

FROM time to time we wonder who is in charge of the asylum.

Then an event occurs which dispels any doubt.

One such event occurred in the Meander Valley municipality recently.

A family living in a shipping container because of dire financial circumstances is being forced, by the council, to incur costs estimated at $5000 to $10,000 for a building surveyor.

The council is apparently obliged to act even though the operation of the law would be manifestly unjust in the circumstances.

It is difficult to conceive how a more dystopian outcome could be imposed on the family.

Perhaps we should not be surprised when a family, in need of a little compassion, should be failed so dismally when the principal concern of the political class is the provision of entertainment for the elite members of society.

A fair go used to be an essential element of our ethos, alas it is no more - it has been crushed by red tape.

IN an article (The Examiner, June 8) principal lawyer Paul McGrath said it all - wills are important.

My late husband and I both had wills, I was the executor for my husband's will. I had made a long list pertaining to all persons to be notified of his passing.

Main documents needed were death certificate and will, all copies to be signed after sighting the original, by a Justice of the Peace. My Solicitor held the original will, which I had to obtain.

It took weeks of work, the hardest which I did last was the very small life insurance.

I asked my solicitor to make a new will, he did, followed by a bill of just over a $1000.

A will is important whether it's prepared by a solicitor or a bought one you can get at the post office. None of us likes to think of the death of a loved one, but it has to be done.

I HAVE just returned from an overseas trip and have been horrified to see how mass tourism has altered community values and lifestyles.

Tasmania's rush to promote mass tourism in a big way will have a big impact on our beautiful state and our way of life, while mostly benefitting only a handful of large investors and businesses. The world is full of five-star hotels and high rise buildings.

What we have is unique, let's keep it that way and not spoil it by turning it into what most countries already offer in abundance.

Would most Tasmanians be happy if Tasmania was to become the playground for rich tourists? And our future would be to clean the hotels for them?