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.
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