Manly Council is not fit for the future according to a report released yesterday by IPART. Neither are our Northern Beaches neighbours Warringah and Pittwater. So the three councils have no choice but to merge to form a giant Northern Beaches council stretching from the Spit Bridge to Barrenjoey Lighthouse. That’s the verdict in the IPART report, which sets out to assess to the viability, or otherwise, of every council in the state. (see copy of relevant Manly pages below, plus full report). While Manly was judged satisfactory on the financial criteria of sustainability, infrastructure and service management and efficiency, we failed the “scale” test. With a population of only 42,800, we fall way short of the required 251,650 residents. We’re certainly not alone. Out of 36 councils in the Sydney region, 29 councils, including City of Sydney, failed the fitness test. Most met financial criteria, but were deemed too small. Advocates of council amalgamation, such as Premier and local MP Mike Baird, say bigger councils would mean ratepayers get better value for money, as well as better services and infrastructure. But opponents say there’s no evidence that big is necessarily better, and that councils are already grouped into regional organisations, which provide economy of scale purchasing power for many goods and services. The NSW government has given councils 30 days to respond to the report, although it has already made it clear that amalgamations will take place. It’s unclear if councils will continue to operate as usual after that date, or if administrators will be brought in, with a possible moratorium on new infrastructure projects until the merger process is complete. Council elections were scheduled for September next year, but may now be shifted to March 2017.
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Swimming in Debt? What’s happening with Manly’s new indoor swim centre? It’s still not clear how much the controversial building will cost. And its size and shape seem to be different from the plan. The pool’s original budget was $15M but that had been upgraded to $21M by late last year. There was an attempt to hide the costs behind “commercial in confidence” claims, but they were published last December in the Manly Daily anyway following a report to Council at the December 2014 meeting. There have been no detailed updates, even for councillors, since then, although the budget is now believed to have reached $22.5M. “I am concerned that despite numerous formal requests for detailed updates on this major project, which is clearly over the stated budget of $15M, these requests by independent councillors have been blocked”, said Good For Manly Councillor, Candy Bingham This month a rescission motion formally asking General Manager,Henry Wong, to prepare a financial report on the project, including the revised budget and amounts spent on the work to date, was finally approved. Clr Bingham said she welcomed the push for more information, but was not hopeful it would succeed. “I’ve requested this information many times. In the meantime we are still waiting for the costs to date for the Manly2015 Plan, which Council formally requested in April”. “I’m a councillor and I’m supposed to represent Manly residents and ratepayers. I can’t do that if I don’t have access to basic financial information about the council’s biggest projects to date.” Concerns have also been raised about the design of the Indoor Swim Centre which appears to be larger than the approved DA. Local resident group Ivanhoe Precinct says that the design of the western facade has clearly changed. The building also seems to be getting bigger as there are now eight, up from seven, roof “sails” and eight, not seven, vertical supports on the eastern facade. (Images below) The precinct has written to the council noting that the original construction plan was approved, as required, by the Joint Regional Planning Panel in December 2014. They asked who had approved the modifications and when; and called for the amended plans to be displayed. Like the precinct, Manly councillors have not been told about the changes to the swimming pool plan. In the meantime Clr Barbara Aird has been pushing tirelessly in an attempt to uncover the cost of repeated road work on Kenneth Rd. Since building started on the indoor centre, Kenneth Rd has become the only place for swimmers to park. But spectacularly bad planning by the council meant parking and traffic arrangements on the road have needed to be changed three times. Even now, safety concerns raised by users of the swim centre, have not been properly addressed. To date General Manager Henry Wong, has responded to requests for information by saying only that the pool budget was “within the contingency allocation”. In responding to the Council resolution this month, he signalled there may be “commercial in confidence” issues and that some items would not be included as they were part of projects other than the pool redevelopment. He also asked for two months, rather than one month, to prepare the report. Background Information: The costings, as stated in the Report to Council on 8th December 2014, page 20 were: ■ Indoor Swim Centre: $17.7 million ■ Heat pump and energy plant: $1.5 million ■ External works & provision for remediation: $1.6 million ■ Total: $20.8 million A separate budget has been allowed for the LM Graham Reserve amenities block of $1.5 million. As well the council has paid an estimated $1.5 million in fees for architects and other professionals. It's bad news for Manly dog owners and their pets. Professional dog walkers have been savaged by a recent council decision to ban them from LM Graham Reserve, reduce their numbers and limit the number of dogs they can walk each day. Last month, without consulting dog owners or dog walking businesses, the council closed Graham Reserve to commercial dog walkers. This is despite it being considered the safest local dog venue as it has a designated, fenced dog exercise area. That means that only Seaforth Oval, Tania Park and Manly Lagoon Reserve remain available for the businesses to use. In addition, dog walkers numbers have been cut by means of a new permit system. The council issued nine permits only - not nearly enough to meet demand. To make matters worse, each dog walker is only allowed two walks per day at one designated venue. Dog owners are furious, with more than 600 signing a petition for change. They want more permits, more walks per permit, and for Graham Reserve to remain part of the mix. They also accuse Manly Council of breaching the 1993 Local Government Act by failing to comply with a requirement for community consultation. “Manly is an area of dog lovers”, Good For Manly Cr Candy Bingham said. “It is estimated that about 50% of people here own dogs. Most of them walk their own dogs, but many use the services of professional dog walkers. Now we have a situation where there are just not enough to go around. “Of course we need to balance the use of our public parkland so everyone can enjoy it, but the existing system was working well. I don’t know why the council didn’t talk to the people involved before rushing into this decision.” Cr Bingham is also concerned that local dog walkers missed out on the permits, with several going to out-of-area businesses. "It concerns me that once again Council seems to have made a rushed decision with no consultation. Even the Councillors had not been informed", she said. Whistler St car park will cost $10M to bring up to fire safety standards according to Manly Council and the Chamber of Commerce. They are wrong. They’re stating our 45-year-old car park needs to comply with fire standards for a building built today. But the requirements, though adequate for public safety, are less stringent for older buildings like ours. They have to be - otherwise councils all over Australia would be sent broke trying to keep their public buildings up to date. The disappointing part is that the Council and the Chamber must know this, but they keep repeating the wildly inaccurate figure anyway. The real compliance cost is about $500,000. And one has to question the fact that if the Whistler Street car park is so bad, why is it listed in Council's current financial accounts as being in good condition and required no maintenance in the 12 months? Below is the breakdown of costs required to bring Whistler St up to the relevant Building Code of Australia fire standards, as prepared for Good For Manly by an independent assessor. This isn’t the first time the Council has bad-mouthed the car park. In 2013 they said the building had concrete cancer and was “falling down”, before later admitting that wasn’t true. Later that year, the building became “a fire hazard”, which required a $5M safety upgrade - ten times too much. This year it’s a $7 - 10M safety upgrade - twenty times too much. The truth is the building is structurally sound and will last for at least another 20 years, and probably for another forty. It needs $0.5M in compliance work and some more in beautification projects like a green wall or murals on the outside to make it look more attractive. Pulling the car park down and selling/99-year-leasing the land for apartments and shops is a key part of the council’s Revitalise Manly (formally Manly2015) Masterplan. The revenue produced from this long term lease will go towards covering the cost of the new 500 space car park under Manly Oval. Without the disposition of the Whistler Street car park, the whole scheme falls in a heap. Hmm .. I wonder if that has anything to do with the grossly exaggerated numbers being pushed by Manly Council? When a fox killed 26 of Manly’s little penguins in June, the local community fought back. And won. In an extraordinary campaign, almost 150 people volunteered to protect the penguins 24 hours a day. The team, which included community “penguin wardens”, National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) staff and fox control experts, physically guarded the North Head colonies for three months without a break. And that was for three winter months - with “freezing” temperatures and long, dark nights. At the same time NPWS increased its program of fox baiting and soft jaw trapping, and used marksmen and tracker dogs to hunt the predator. The fox responsible for the killings - able to be identified by its paw prints, penguin autopsy results and infra-red camera footage - was never caught, but rangers are confident it is no longer active. So now they're moving to stage two. Penguin volunteers no longer have to spend the night at Collins Beach, Store Beach or Q Station. They will be replaced by back-to-base cameras and an array of new high-tech gear. As well frequent fox-baiting and soft-jaw trapping programs will be carried out and there will be a blitz on people walking dogs in North Head national parkland - an offence that carries a $350 fine. But the new equipment doesn’t come cheap, so the Foundation for National Parks & Wildlife has started a $20,000 fund raising campaign. They need $10,000 for 20 motion sensing cameras to monitor the area $5,000 for a thermal camera that can detect the heat given off by penguins and predators $450 for 5 fox lights that are triggered by movement and give off bright, flashing lights to scare away foxes $1,000 for 10 nesting boxes to help the penguins rebuild their population To help, go to chuffed.org/project/manly-little-penguins In the meantime NPWS ranger Mel Tyas said the penguin colonies had bounced back, with the 26 penguins largely replaced by birds moving in from outside the area. “It’s great news,” she said. “The volunteers were absolutely fantastic - they were there all winter long, and now it looks like the colonies will be OK. And if there is any trouble again we’ll be onto it straight away.” |
AuthorCandy Bingham, Deputy Mayor & Manly Ward Councillor on Northern Beaches Council. Background in marketing, public relations and community engagement. Author of five business books. Former Lady Mayoress of Sydney. Aka Candy Tymson. ........................................
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