Are Wangaratta ratepayers being ripped off?

The Chronicle of 28 April 2006 reports:

$200k more to be poured into $3.7m library

... but Cr Scholtz cautions over rising cost, fearful of blowout risk.

Watchdog readers would have read The high cost of our free library published back on April 16 from information in the April council meeting agenda which dealt with the same cost blowout.

One of the key causes was that it was discovered that the existing ‘A’ block of the TAFE building had been subjected to a series of extensive structural renovations over the years; such renovations hidden by ceilings and other plasterwork. This has meant that the detailed structural design has needed to take into account and allow for structural strengthening of the existing building.

It was also discovered that all the existing electrical cabling and high percentages of the existing sewerage and stormwater drainage lines are in very poor condition and will need to be replaced as part of this project.

GoTafe came to this venture supplying the building together with $500k. The title of the building will remain with the TAFE College.

As the RCoW entered the agreement without prior knowledge of these structural defects, one of the following has taken place.

• The RcoW has not done a site evaluation nor inspected its records
• GoTafe has not done a site inspection nor inspected its records, or
• GoTafe has witheld the information

With long standing council planning and building permit protocols, neither the RCoW nor GoTafe can claim they did not know "that the existing ‘A’ block of the TAFE building had been subjected to a series of extensive structural renovations over the years; such renovations hidden by ceilings and other plasterwork." The documentation must be in the records.

Under these circumstances, the rectification of these structural defects should lay with GoTafe - not with the ratepayers of the Rural City of Wangaratta. At the very least, the extra $211,183 should be a shared expense.