Wangaratta Council ignores public opinion

The councillors you elected last year have shown complete contempt for the electorate.

The Council website regularly provides its meeting agenda and business papers on the Friday before the Council meeting. For the first time, they were witheld until Monday, the day before the meeting. This can only be seen as secrecy and a lack of transparency by the council.

Keen to find out the recommendation regarding the petition against the demolition of the town hall and the survey sponsored by the RCoW it was unacceptable to find that the RCoW was continuimg to hide the facts from the community with the statement that

"a survey has been commissioned to respond to these issues. A full report on the survey outcome will be available in advance of the meeting for consideration by Council ... Recommendation: Subject to addendum report."

The addendum report was never offered for download on the RCoW website.

The stated issues relating to the petition that Council needed to consider included:
1. What weight does the petition carry as an overall reflection of community views on the proposal by Council for a Performing Arts Centre?
   
2. Given that the petition was done at a point in time, what effect if any has the dissemination of further information by Council had on the opinions of those who might have signed the petition?
3. Is the petition representative of a lack of support for a Performing Arts Centre or a means of expressing concern about other specific aspects of the proposal such as impact on Senior Citizens accommodation, car parking, traffic, seating capacity, etc?

The petition was about the demolition of the town hall - nothing else.

The RCoW have avoided the issue completely and after discussion decided to continue on in spite of one third of the adult population signing that petition seeking the retention of the town hall.

Predictably, the only councillor to speak against the council position was Councillor Justin Scholz who raised concerns that the council sponsored survey was flawed. In his speech he said:

"... the survey was designed with a number of closed questions at the beginning that provided positive reinforcement of council's proposal regardless of the response given by the respondent. These questions included:
- Before today, were you aware that the proposed performing arts centre would include:

• A 530 seat theatre,
  
• A flat floor area for 572 or up to 900 people seated theatre style or 300 at tables,
  
• On-site parking capacity,
  
• Most of the funding from State Government to minimise the cost to residents.

Now by asking these questions first Mr Mayor the respondent is being positively reinforced and lead to believe that the project is a good thing.

The interviewers then followed up with a statement before asking the respondents if they agreed with the proposal. This statement included the following "The existing Town Hall would be demolished and replaced with a striking, flexible community facility costing $7.5m. Council decided not to keep the existing Town Hall because it is extremely difficult to marry the new and the old, all car parking would be lost and it would cost 60% more."

We were also told Mr Mayor that the survey was a random sample type. Now a random sample Mr Mayor means that in the absence of quota criteria, all persons contacted will have the right to participate in the survey. From the plethora of calls that I have received it is clear that quota surveying was undertaken and included criteria such as Age, and having signed the community petition."

Wodonga is going through a similar crisis with the proposed Willow Park Pool development.

The original proposal was for an outdoor pool to be built but, like the Rural City of Wangaratta, the plan changed - without public consultation - to become a two stage plan of an indoor aquatic centre followed at a later date by an outdoor pool.

When the public found out in early August, the issue exploded in the Border Mail with a protest campaign getting up and running. The mayor, Lisa Mahood, dug in her heels, just like Wangaratta's mayor Don Joyce, stating that Objections won't sway Council.

A petition followed (sound familiar?) which 1017 residents signed and that was enough to force the Wodonga council to rethink the program for further review.

But in Wangaratta, 6000 petitioners are ignored and a $20,000 propaganda campaign is launched by council to justify a decision that deserves to end the public career of most of our councillors.

Written by Greg Naylor