LOSER PAYS 2

On 13 May of this year, I posted an article on this blog about the YRCC—‘The White Elephant in York’s Pajamas’.

  

I reminded Council that former ACEO Graeme Simpson had long ago promised what he called ‘a fact sheet’ regarding the YRCC and that his promise, made in the Shire’s name, had never been honoured. 

The article concluded with the draft of a composite question subsequently submitted, slightly amended, in writing to the Shire.  

The Shire President’s response, analysed in my article ‘Great Expectations’ posted on 8 June, made no attempt to deal with the substance of my question.  Instead, Cr Wallace told me that the Shire would undertake a ‘management review’ of the YRCC during the 2016/17 financial year, that said review ‘was expected’ to result in a ‘Business Plan’ for Council to consider, and that  ‘Directions for the Centre’ would ensue following ‘consultation with the sporting clubs’.  That, he opined, ‘would be a better time to issue a Facts Sheet if possible’.

I’m still wondering what he meant by ‘if possible’.  Why might it not be possible?  And if it does turn out to be impossible, what does that tell us about the management of Shire resources over the past few years?

A second composite question

We’re now halfway through the 2016/17 financial year.  To celebrate that impending milestone, I submitted in writing a further composite question on the YRCC to the November OCM.   Here it is, with preamble:

  

"Six months ago, at the May 2016 OCM, I asked a composite question relating to the York Recreation and Convention Centre (YRCC). 

In summary, I wanted to know how much the building had cost to construct; how much money had been diverted and from what other projects to help meet the cost of construction; the annual cost since 2012 of maintenance and repair; how much revenue had accrued annually to the Shire since 2012 from clubs using the centre; how much profit had accrued annually since 2012 from the operation of the restaurant and bar; how many conventions, conferences and seminars have been hosted at the centre annually since 2012, and at what profit to the Shire; and how likely it seemed that the centre would ever be self-supporting rather than, as now, an unprofitable burden on the majority of York’s ratepayers.

I also asked when the Shire proposed to issue the ‘fact sheet’ on the YRCC promised by Acting CEO Graeme Simpson in January 2015.

To my surprise—because all but the last of them were not speculative but referred simply to matters of record—the Shire did not provide definitive and comprehensive answers to any of those questions.  

However, I did receive from the Shire President a vague assurance that a forthcoming business plan for the YRCC would address ‘many of the issues involved in [my] question’. 

So I now ask:  

(a)            What progress has been made, and how, towards the formulation of a business plan for the YRCC;

(b)           If and when the business plan will be released for public scrutiny and discussion;

(c)            Which of the issues ‘involved’ in my May question the business plan is likely to address;

(d)           Why apparently no part of my May question could be answered by consulting Shire records; and

(e)            If the answer to (d) is that documents are missing from the files—

(1) What categories of document—e.g. those relating to awarding of contracts—appear to be missing;

(2)  Is the Shire satisfied that with respect to any missing documents no offences have been committed against the State Records Act 2000; and

(3) If it is not thus satisfied, will the Shire refer the matter to the proper authorities for investigation and possible prosecution?"

 

Unfortunately, illness prevented me from attending that meeting, so my question wasn’t answered publicly until the appearance of the agenda for the December OCM.  However, I received early private notification of the Shire’s response in a letter dated 6 December from the CEO, Paul Martin.

Here is CEO Martin 's letter, exactly as I received it (click to enlarge):

 'I trust this answers your queries', says CEO Martin.  No, not really, but the Executive Manager Corporate and Community Services has, perhaps inadvertently, shed some light on what lies in store for the downtrodden ratepayers of York.  These are my conclusions:

1.  The Shire will go on maintaining the centre for the benefit of the sporting clubs.

2.  In due course, Council will decide on how the centre will be managed and by whom.  My guess is that the task of managing the centre will devolve to some degree upon the sporting clubs, while the associated financial burden of repairing and maintaining it will continue to fall upon ratepayers in general much as it does now. 

3. The community and 'stakeholders' (the latter term being code for 'sporting clubs') will be allowed some say in how the centre is to be managed. But it seems unlikely that the views of 'the community', i.e. humble forelock tuggers like you and me, will be given much weight compared with those of the panjandrums who run the clubs and exert influence over Council.

It's all such a pity.  I strongly suspect that more than a few members of sporting clubs, especially the tennis and bowls clubs that traded their friendly former premises for accommodation in the sterile YRCC, are rueing the day when they allowed their executive committees to bully them into throwing in their lot with CEO Hooper's grandiose plans.

Open, honest and accountable?

Some of us are beginning to question if our current Council is as committed to open, honest and accountable government as we had hoped and trusted it would be.  

My default position is that when government officials, elected or appointed, decline to cooperate unreservedly in a legitimate fact-seeking exercise, it’s because they have guilty secrets to conceal and shoddy reputations to protect, their own or those of colleagues, relatives, friends, supporters and the like. 

It hasn’t escaped my notice that more than one of our present councillors sat on previous councils responsible for promoting and nurturing the YRCC—in other words, for hatching Ray Hooper’s diabolical egg, then attaching the hatchling’s greedy little beak to the Shire’s inexhaustible supply of ratepayer-funded nutriment.  

(Yes, I know I’ve changed the metaphor from pachyderm to pecker, but to borrow the words of an American philosopher, consistency in such matters is the hobgoblin of petty minds.) 

It wouldn't surprise me to discover that some of Ray's acolytes, including the 'cohesive team' that lined up obediently behind him in his heyday, are still running York by proxy.

Plus ça change…

And another thing… 

Like me, you may have learned with amazement from agenda item SY163 – 12/16 that 74.7% of rates for the current year remain outstanding.  That’s a total of $1,937,361.21.

A further $656,299.54 remains outstanding from previous years, making a combined total of $2,593,660.75.

What are we to make of this?  Why aren’t people in York paying their rates on time?

Is it because irresponsibly high rate increases in recent years, driven by reckless spending like James Best’s purchase of Chalkies and engaging consultants (almost $91,000 on a single firm of public relations consultants, hired to do his job for him) have placed too heavy a burden on York ratepayers, many of whom are retired people or pensioners?

How will Council’s latest act of extravagance, resurfacing the tennis courts at the YRCC, impact on the rates we will be called upon to pay in the 2017/18 financial year?

The Wheatbelt, in which York is located, is reputed to be the most economically depressed region in WA.

I think our councillors need to engage, if they can, in a process of sustained independent thinking before blindly accepting ‘officer recommendations’ to spend lots of our money unnecessarily on anything to do with a grotesquely flawed venture like the YRCC.

Senior local government officers are generously remunerated, earning what for most Yorkies must seem like a king’s ransom.  After a few years of riding the local government gravy train, it’s highly likely that they lose any real sense of how less privileged members of the community struggle to stay afloat financially.

I doubt very much that in preparing his tennis-court recommendation to Council, the officer responsible gave a nanosecond’s consideration to how it might make life a little harder for most of York’s ratepayers.

But when such recommendations are made and decisions taken, that thought should be uppermost in everyone’s mind.

 

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KIDDIES’ CORNER

(Click to enlarge picture, then see if you can find the misspelled word.)

‘Hurry up, hurry up, we’re late!’ cried the White Rabbit.  ‘Get into the van at once!’

‘Certainly not,’ Alice replied.   ‘I’ve got a sudden craving for one of Mad Mo’s succulent Danish pastries with lashings of cream and a nice pot of English Breakfast tea.’

‘Lady Norah won’t be pleased,’ said the White Rabbit, his whiskers twitching nervously as he extracted a shiny stopwatch from a pocket of his waistcoat.

‘I don’t give the proverbial occasion of momentary aerobatic sexual congress about that,’ said Alice crossly, ‘and I refuse to climb into a strange vehicle with a word in common use misspelled on its side.’

‘Quite right!’ huffed the Red Queen, striding furiously, sceptre in hand, out of the Post Office. ‘Off with their heads!’

(Carol Lewis, Malice in Blunderland, Ch.4 ‘Alice Up the Duff Again’)