Another year looks lost (#811)

DACCI has long anticipated that a Forward Planning Grant under the Community Sport and Recreation Facility Funding [CSRFF] program would be a key part of any funding plan for the Denmark Aquatic Centre.  Applications for the current round must be lodged with the Shire by 31 August and the Regional Office of the Department of Sport and Recreation in Albany by 28 September.

No funding application can succeed without Council’s support.  The level of that support cannot be determined until the issues are laid before councillors for debate.  The debate cannot be joined until it appears on an agenda.  The agenda cannot be prepared without a report from shire officers.

We have been advised that shire officers are considering the DACCI’s “Alternative Models” report and, in the words of the Albany Advertiser report of 10 June, would “investigate it and find all the evidence it could to either support or disown the DACCI report”.

Yet the Shire’s Project Team was set up specifically to examine these issues and report to Council.  The team comprises two shire officers, two councillors and two DACCI representatives. A third officer, the Director of Finance and Administration attended the most recent meetings – first to explain the rationale behind his conclusions that the pool would cost ratepayers $1.2M pa to run and later to participate in a thorough discussion of an alternative model suggested by DACCI and estimated to cost about $300k pa.

Feedback from this meeting was acted upon and became the basis of an adjusted model, details of which were verbally presented to Council in May together with DACCI’s report and a list of recommendations unanimously agreed by the Project Team.  I think it is accurate to say that the our concept plan had been warmly received by the team and, using this as a base, we started to work on the additional aspects needed in any grant application - time projections, business plan, risk susceptibility etc.

We are therefore puzzled by the claim that shire officers are still “considering” DACCI’s alternative.  We have not been contacted to seek clarification of any aspects of the plan.  However, third parties have been invited to pick holes in the plan - a step taken without consulting the Project Team.  Their advice has been received by shire officers but not formally communicated to DACCI.

Hopefully this state of affairs is just an early morning mist that will lift when exposed to the light of reason.  But there are consequences that seem irreversible.  We are not going to meet the deadline. 

We have missed the opportunity to make grant applications in the next round of CSRFF. Consequently we will lose yet another year without even taking a shot at getting a pool for Denmark.  

It’s one thing to seek financial assistance from grant authorities and fail – it’s quite another to fail because you didn’t try.

Cyril Edwards, DACCI, denmarkpool@gmail.com and http://www.denmarkpool.blogspot.com.

Horror rates rumour 'untrue' (#810)

Keep those emails and letters to your councilors going.  Your correspondence and some of the replies you are receiving from Councilors will help to uncover misunderstandings.  Once exposed, a genuine cause of concern can usually be addressed as long as there is good will and understanding on all sides.

A case in point is the central question of how the pool might be paid for in the long term.  We’ve explained elsewhere that DACCI Plan A should cost the average ratepayer roughly $1.50 per week or $78 per year to implement - which happens to correspond to 7% of last year’s average rate.  For someone paying the average ($1,119) it doesn’t matter whether the bill is linked to a predetermined percentage or a pre-determined dollar amount.

But if you insist on using percentages you very quickly get into trouble.  For although about 80% of ratepayers pay the average rate or less, the other 20% pay more.  Herein lies the problem.  Because the curve describing “who pays how much” is highly skewed, farmers and others who already pay large rates may be lumbered with a pool contribution that’s unfair.  That is very definitely not part of DACCI’s plan.

We see the aquatic facility as a service to the community.  It would provide primary health care through community participation in fitness programs across all ages; safe swimming for our children; therapy for the injured and infirm; and social cohesion through sport.  It is a service that should cost the remote farming family with large acreage no more than it costs a resident of quarter-acre block in town.

Clearly, contributions need to be capped in some way.  The simplest tool to use would be a levy that added a fixed amount to each rates notice just like the Emergency Services Levy [ESL].  In fact, a swimming pool shares many of the features of the ESL.  Both are special in the sense that funds collected are dedicated to a specific purpose: they can’t be used for anything else.  Moreover, when rates need to increase for reasons beyond Council’s control (as they probably will this year), both a pool levy and the ESL remain quarantined.  Both provide services that are equally important to the social fabric and well-being of the community.  Tell me that you don't need firefighters, the SES  and volunteer sea rescue crews and I’ll agree that you don't need a pool.

Could a levy or specific service charge be the solution?  Well that depends on an interpretation of the Local Government Act 1995.  Section 6.38 implies that this could be done  - but we need a legal opinion on that or some imaginative footwork from the financial whizzes at the Shire.

 

Don’t have a bar of any fear campaigns.  Stay clear-headed and critical and come down to Council Meetings to show your representatives that you want them to get on with the job with a solutions-focused agenda.

Cyril Edwards, DACCI, denmarkpool@gmail.com and http://www.denmarkpool.blogspot.com.