Why am I standing for council?

Simply, I have had enough. I considered standing at the last election but there was a ticket of candidates who guaranteed transparency and financial responsibility. Not one of those candidates appears to have stood up to be counted, the secrecy remains and so does irresponsible spending.

debt

The council debt can be likened to an Albatross around our necks. The debt has increased from 26 million dollars in 2007 to almost 33 million dollars, a figure given by the council CEO at the first briefing to prospective candidates in October 2008. This debt has increased despite the sale of a large chunk of Logic Center; the money from which we as ratepayers are continually told is to pay of our debt. This council is also on the path of committing the ratepayer to between 60 and 80 million dollars of increased debt with projects which include the Aquatic Center at Whitebox Rise, the High St revamp, a performing arts development at the Civic Center, an involvement with the Theater Complex, the North Barnawartha Livestock Exchange and Feedlot, the proposed closure of the Wodonga Livestock Exchange and the proposed Closure of the Stanley St Swim center and a suggestion to close the Wodonga Sports and Leisure Center.

I would suggest that the first order of business for the new council would be to clarify our debt situation. They should, if necessary, have a voluntary committee of finacially experienced members assist the CEO and councils finance managers to quantify not only the total debt, but the interest we are paying and the expected debt and interest from any projects due to begin that have not been disclosed due to 'commercial in confidence' a statement that hides many sins.

the pool

The closure of the Stanley St swimming pool is unecessary and unwarranted. After a lot of research, and talking to various people, something the council members appear not to have done, and if they have, ignored them, expert opinion has it that small towns/cities such as Wodonga would be making a huge mistake in moving their Swim Centers out of the middle of town. The pools attract shoppers to the CBD and shoppers feed the pool, a self sustaining cycle. The Stanley St site is also central to almost all of the state and public schools in Wodonga making walking to and from pool and school a viable alternative to bus transport. The Whitebox Rise Site would be more difficult to access for a lot of the schools, this would mean that there would be additional expense for schools in transporting students to and from Whitebox Rise via bus.

The Stanley St pool should be upgraded to a 10 lane, 50 meter heated venue. This would be cheaper than the current 24 million dollar budget for the completed Whitebox Rise proposal, the first tenders for stage 1 are already more than a million dollars over budget, causing this council to consider downsizing to a 25 meter pool at the Whitebox venue. This would mean that Whitebox Rise is just a copy of the Sports and Leisure Center, the Sports and Leisure Center already has a 25 meter pool, massage, physiotherapy, a cafe and other sport and gym facilities so why build another. Provision has also been built into the pool at the Sports and Leisure Center for it to be extended to 50 meters; this would give the city its indoor heated facility.

The reasons to put in a heated, 10 lane, 50 meter pool at the Stanley St site, beside cost, are varied, one important factor is that a pool of this size would bring in much needed cash to Wodonga. The pool when completed would be multi use, capable of hosting long course events and because a 10 lane pool is 25 meters wide, short course events. The pool, being the only one of that size south of Sydney and in rural Victoria would be capable of hosting proper Water Polo competitions.

There would be immediate benefits for the local user groups. Training could be conducted for both long and short course competitions and multiple training sessions for the different level of swimmer could be conducted at the same time. This is something that neither the Sports and Leisure Center nor the proposed Whitebox Rise site will offer. It would also be a much more suitable venue for the cities athletes with disabilities to train at, currently the cold water makes training painful and difficult, no one wants to go to Albury but sometimes that trip is necessary.

Outdoor pools are family friendly, encouraging a social relaxed atmosphere, pool parties, bbq's, just sitting in the cool watching your grandchildren have fun. It's not the same indoors, how many teenage social groups do you see at the indoor centres? We need both.

logic centre

The Logic Center is an expensive experiment in Development started by previous councils, a problem that this council has been unable to resolve. If logic was at all viable it would have sold within a very short time but here we are, almost a decade later, and it is, like the Albatross, still a weight around our necks. I do not have the experience in development to provide a solution but that is why there are developers in Albury and Wodonga, they provide development solutions.

stanley street redevelopment

The much mooted 'Café Precinct' was and still is an ongoing disaster area. It was never sustainable as a concept. There were too many established businesses in Stanley St and very few of the current buildings are suitable, without extensive and expensive changes, to be reintroduced as Café's. Stanley St was hastily designed and hastily constructed and we are left with major problems. Some of the problems that have occurred so far are:

The art work glass beads glued to concrete footpaths lasted mere days, the glue used did not work. Any left stuck down were removed and never replaced.
The large concrete balls were removed; they were a trip hazard to vision impaired and elderly
Palm trees are a hazard at the road crossing area near Marelli's, a lot of towns are removing them from around food retailers as they are considered a health hazard. Our council plants them.
No drop of or pick up area for patients or ambulance parking at doctors
No parking area for delivery trucks
Underground plumbing to buildings not replaced
Umbrellas do not shade benches placed near them, confuses me.
Even moderate rain causes flooding below the real estate agents offices.
Imagine what would have happened to those establishments if we had a normal winter.

high street

High Street does need a facelift but not one quite so "out there". There are aspects of the design that could be continued with and incorporated into a new design but I think we need to be sensible in our approach. Simplify and beautify, plantings, trees, awnings, pedestrian crossings, reverse angle parking, speed limits, taxi and bus access all need to be considered.

the saleyards

The move of the sale yards is another strange decision by this council. The decision appears to have been made before 2000 and justification provided by selectively quoting parts of the Huefner and Associates report, which on face value appears to support their view. The Huefner Report and the following GHD Report both recommend further investigation be done before a final decision is made, recommendations this council, as usual, has ignored.

I am still in the process of reading material available in regards to the sale yards but I am constantly being suprised by the lack of information, especially any documented information in which this, and previous councils are mentioned. There are no minuted meetings that I have found between Huefner and Associates and council, no documents in regards to the scope of the report, nothing in regards to the progress of the report, nothing to indicate Huefner and Associates consulted either local users or other experts in the use, construction and maintenance of sale yards. If there are such documents, would any one like to show me where to find them.

In an effort to get the 'Green' vote much is made about water usage and the effluent ponds being a risk to adjacent creeks with effluent possibly ending up in local creeks, rivers and ground water. The 100 year flood plain maps, ground water and artesian overlays provided on the Victorian Government Site linked to www.dse.vic.gov.au do not indicate that there are any groundwater or artesian sites in the Albury Wodonga area. The WLE effluent ponds hold 33 mega litre's of water more than half of the supposed yearly water usage of the WLE, this effluent is in fact harvested by a company called 'Nutrisoil' so the ponds rarely contain any large amounts of effluent. The WLE is also 20 meters above the highest flood level of the creeks and rivers near the WLE so I am of the opinion based on the maps and figures provided that the risk of effluent contamination is minimal. This does not mean it can be ignored, we can also look into otpions such as black water recycling to further reduce any risk.

The second issue is that of water usage, the council published a document claiming that the WLE uses over 1 million liters of water each week. I would like to see a breakdown of that figure. How much is used for human consumption, drinking, washing, toilets etc and what is used for stock, drinking etc and what is used for yard wash, truck wash etc. I have also stated above that a lot of water is recycled by Nutrisoil. This doesn't mean that the use of water can not be reduced, rainfall harvesting and black water recycled water can be used in toilets, truck washes and stock yard hose downs. We could possibly follow Albury and enclose the effluent ponds and use the methane for power generation to enable black water recycling at no cost.

The move does not benefit the ratepayers in any way. Simply by leasing the sale yards to a private company for the next three years means a loss of over a million dollars to the ratepayer with more to come. There would also be a large increase in costs to the users.

consultation

In my opinion this council has forgotten how to consult. The process this council has consistently used is to decide, consult, then stick with their original decision. The only time that process failed is with the move of the pool to Willow Park, fortunately the residents formed a very effective lobby group and now the council listens and correctly consults with them before making any decision that may affect the Park. Unfortunately for Wodonga the council then decided that Whitebox Rise would be a viable alternative.

negative

Not everything about the council is negative, the council workers and council officers do a great job under extreme difficulty. The officers are directed by council and when it turns pear shape this council uses them as scapegoats.

contact

Contact Edward (Ed) Foulston at: ed4council@iinet.net.au

I will compile all questions into a common theme where possible and answer as soon as I can.