The guile of management and the commercial ineptitude of elected councillors was once again on full display at last Wednesday’s ordinary meeting of Bega Valley Shire Council (BVSC).
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Responding to a question on notice from Cr Fitzpatrick, council’s group manager - community, relations and leisure, set-about cleverly explaining why relocating the Merimbula library to the old Tura Beach Tavern building, coupled with the establishment of a “pop-up” library service in the new Auswide building in Merimbula, made better sense than establishing a library at both locations.
In dismissing the alternate proposal, the group manager cited the increased costs involved in establishing duplicate services and the loss of significant space at the Auswide building, as reasons why it wouldn’t work.
Of course, what the group manager didn’t do was acknowledge that no-one had actually tabled such a proposal. And nor did he canvass the option of relocating the existing library to the Auswide building, while abandoning plans to do anything at the Tura Beach site altogether.
The benefits of this latter approach would be considerable, with the council library staff also able to manage the alleged “training centre” to be provided by council at the Auswide building, with no additional staff required at Tura Beach. As to the suggested loss of space in the Auswide building, a 325sq metre library facility in a space of 2,700sq metres is hardly significant (12 per cent). And what better place to locate a library than in a training venue?
After two years and a sunk cost to residents/ratepayers of more than $200,000, council appears to have no other plans for the utilisation of the Tura Beach Tavern site, other than the library and maybe some records storage.
The Bega Valley Shire Residents & Ratepayers Association (BVSRRA) believes that the relocation of library services to the Auswide building would provide a better service to the community than if it was relocated to Tura Beach as is currently planned.
At the same time, as there would no longer be any need to retain the Tura Beach Tavern site, council could sell those buildings, pay-out the loan and potentially save the residents/ratepayers the ongoing cost of at least $100,000 a year.
Of course, such a proposal would make way too much sense for council to consider.
John Richardson
Bega Valley Residents & Ratepayers Association
