DOING WHAT THE SHIRE DOES BEST—IMPOVERISHING AND DEMORALIZING THE GOOD FOLK OF YORK

By now most of you will be aware that Commissioner James Best has called a Special Council Meeting for tomorrow, Thursday 2 July 2015, at 5 p.m.

The meeting will take place at the York Recreation and Convention Centre, Forrest Street, York.

If you can attend, please, please do.

The main purpose of the meeting is for the Commissioner to authorise the purchase of land and buildings at Lots 800-801, 25 and 27 South Street, York—in other words, the Old Convent School, also known as ‘Chalkies’.  

Owners of the property are Richard and Nola Bliss, proprietors of Faversham House and the York Palace Hotel.  

Heritage

As the commissioner rightly says, the Old Convent School (as I prefer to call it) is an iconic heritage building.  It was built as a school in 1873 by the Sisters of Mercy, and closed in 1971. 

The Shire of York bought it in 1976 and turned it into a public library.  In 2001 the Shire sold it, apparently because it was costing an arm and a leg to maintain. It then became a gallery selling locally made furniture. 

A few years later, in 2004, the building became a restaurant, the ‘Ragged Robin’, before being acquired by Mr and Mrs Bliss in (I believe) 2009.  (It was they who christened it ‘Chalkies’.) The couple ran it for a while as a shop selling antiques but put it up for sale about two years ago, maybe longer.

Valuation

Until now, nobody seems to have taken a lot of interest in the property since it went on the market.  That’s not surprising.  As everyone knows, property values in York have been going south for several years.  

In the absence of a sworn valuation from an independent licensed land valuer, I doubt many people would be too ready to fork out $625,000 for the property, picturesque as it may be. 

Luckily for Mr and Mrs Bliss, Commissioner Best rode into town at just the right time, looking for a feather to put in his cap and eager to make contact with the right (or, as he was wont to say, ‘important’) people.

Did the commissioner obtain a sworn valuation?  According to Mr Bliss in a conversation with my friend Jane Ferro, the deal was sealed on the basis of a bank valuation.   I’m not sure whose bank provided it.  I suspect it was the vendors’ bank.

Ah well, it’s not the commissioner’s money, so why should he bother about minor details like value, price and the cost of upkeep and development?

‘Financial implications’

Under the heading ‘Financial Implications’, the agenda tells us that ‘the estimated impact will be one loan repayment plus accrued costs which will amount to $71,989 for principal and interest during the 2015/16 financial year’.  That’s one repayment for one year. 

What is the loan period?  At what rate of interest is the loan to be repaid?  What will be the total cost of the loan? 

No estimate is given of the likely cost of maintenance, modifications and repairs during that one-year period, let alone what the people of York will have to pay to cover the new debt and maintenance costs over many years to come.  

In the draft budget, as I have previously pointed out, the sum of $625,000 was earmarked for ‘Town Square—purchase and development’.  Since the whole of that sum is the agreed purchase price for the Old Convent School, where will the money for development come from?   Nobody’s saying, but I think we know the answer to that one. 

What assurance can the commissioner give us that his nonsensical ‘Town Square development’—a town square in a back street, heaven preserve us!—won’t turn into another fiscal nightmare like the YRCC?

Why now?

The biggest question is this—why now?  Why this building, at this time, for that price and that purpose?

Do we really want or need the commissioner’s vaunted back-street town square development? 

And why couldn’t such an important decision be left to the elected councillors, due to resume office next week?

I’m told the commissioner has come up with a variety of answers to such questions, none of them convincing.  Perhaps he’ll do better tomorrow night.

But I think we already know the answers, and they do the commissioner no credit at all.

BOOK REVIEW

The Rodent’s Revenge—How Jimmy the Rat Got His Own Back on the Shire that Flipped Him the Bird, by J K Potter, with a foreword by P R Racket.

Rapacity Press, $10.60, 11 pages, illustrated with wordles.

This is the fourth book in the ‘Jimmy the Rat’ series.  Like the previous books, it begins with a little rhyme:

                        ‘This is a story of Jimmy the Rat

                        With his shiny gold tooth and his shiny top hat,

                        He’s the charm of a snake and he grins like a cat –

                        A crafty young fellow is Jimmy the Rat!’

Jimmy’s boss Tacky Stumbleson sends him on a mission to try out his box of magic tricks on the people of a small shire east of the Big City.  There, Jimmy meets up with the weasel Grababit Swansong.  When most of the locals refuse to take part in Jimmy’s precognitive séances, Jimmy and Grababit set out to make their lives hell. 

They do this at first by recruiting armies of hungry elves from the city as overpaid consultants on the shire payroll.  Then they re-appoint an unpopular matron with no medical qualifications as second-in-charge of the asylum.  As a parting gesture of contempt, they borrow money in the shire’s name to buy a decrepit old building from Jimmy’s friends Mr and Mrs Ecstasy for considerably more than the townsfolk believe it to be worth.

I found the characters and plot incredible, but the story with all its many twists and turns kept me wondering to the very end. 

Suitable for children of all ages except for those of a nervous disposition or cursed with an active sense of right and wrong.