Not so boring budget
Well, the budget meeting was not so boring.
A highlight of the meeting was confirmation that Councillor Tancred reads our blogs. Cr Tancred pointed out that the $1.6 million for Connolly Dam was for investigations to determine the spending over the next 10 years. He asked the Finance Manager what the current ballpark estimate is for safety works on Connolly Dam. The audio of the answer isn’t great (so I will correct this – again – if it is wrong) but it sounded like $39.2 million. So well higher than the $20 million estimate of 2021. It was great to get this clarification, Cr Tancred. We at POW! I think can now take it, as this is only the second (albeit oblique) clarification we have received from SDRC, that all of the other factual matters in our innumerable blogs (78) are correct. Well done POW!
While we’re on a roll, we’re hoping Cr Tancred could maybe stir himself to answer a few of the key question that we’ve put in our blogs.
The State Government modelling, which is based on GBIP’s own modelling, says Emu Swamp Dam would have been dry in the last drought. Just like Storm King Dam.
Just like local on-farm dams. Evaporation means they do not last more than 2 years in a drought scenario. Remember all of the local farmers having to truck water in at great cost?
How then does Emu Swamp Dam offer any drought protection for Stanthorpe?
The drama of the meeting though was all around “The Letter”. We can report the following details.
Cr Tancred has not seen The Letter but is looking forward to seeing it after it goes back to the Alliance and their next minutes come out in, say, another 2 months. Cr Tancred is a patient man.
Councillor Gale has not seen The Letter and doesn’t know what the issue at the heart of it is but has had a conversation with someone involved in the “motion”. This person told Cr Gale that they had personally taken “all of this” badly. But they didn’t tell Cr Gale what “all of this” (the motion or The Letter) was about.
Cr Gale thinks that any Councillor discussing a lack of transparency is being defamatory. We’re all in deep doo-doo if this is correct, as one of the 5 key principles of local government is transparency, and if you can’t talk about it and debate it, then how can you achieve it? I’m going to call this one as I see it: WHAT ABSOLUTE NONSENSE.
All of the Councillors correspondence is open and shared, but not the Mayor’s correspondence. Lesson learned: if you want a letter to be public send it to any one of the eight Councillors. If you want it to remain a secret send it to the Mayor. Weird huh?
7 June 2023