The Beagle Editor, For the interest of your readers I provide a copy of a letter I have sent to Council. General Manager and all the Elected Councillors, Eurobodalla Shire Council
Dear All
The November 24/ 2020 Council Meeting Agenda has an item CCS/046, and report including a staff recommendation to lease the Batemans Bay Community Centre to a preferred group, tenderer, for some time. The time frame seems to be publicly unknown at the present time, as does the annual lease fee.
It’s been indicated that there are other publicly owned venues in the Batemans Bay area that are underutilised, not earning enough revenue, and those who presently use the present BBCC will need to relocate from the existing Batemans Bay Community Centre, if council resolves to lease the present Batemans Bay Community Centre to the preferred interest group as per the council staff recommendation. If the the other publicly owned assets are suitable for the displaced groups because of a resolution of the councillors to lease, earn more income, why hasn’t the preferred expression of interest group or tenderer been advised those other publicly owned venues are available at the same or similar arrangements, at Hanging Rock etc.?
The matter CCS20/046 should be deferred, councillor site inspections and discussions, inspections should occur of the other venues at Hanging Rock and wherever else they maybe. If they are not up to the standards equivalent to the present Batemans Bay Community Centre, and unable to attract users and user groups without being forced to them, because they have no other choice, they need to be upgraded to compete. Funding , grants or whatever is available, needs to be sought to upgrade and modernise the other ‘available’ publicly owned assets to make them attractive to any potential users. That would be the sensible way to attract the interest of any user groups to them. Developing reports for councillors to make the decisions on that puts people at odds with their elected representatives, council community, voter elected delegates, makes for very poor council public relations.
If the extravagances, annual losses and long term publicly funded underwriting of the Mackay Park Aquatic Centre Complex, wasn’t going to be a problem, would our councillors be being asked to consider leasing the Batemans Bay Community Centre and in effect attempting to push other user groups into venues in an attempt to improve their revenue streams ?
A bit more thought needs to be given the Mackay Park Developments financial long term obligations, by our elected councillors and their Professional Financial Advisers.
CCS20/046 should be withdrawn for the November 24 Council meeting while more accurate information is gathered and site inspections by councillors of the other venues occurs.
yours Sincerely Allan Brown
Catalina NSW 2536
