Don’t blame ratepayers for your scheme failure

At this week’s Council meeting, council voted on the motion not to proceed with the proposed Surf Beach Sunderland Bay Special Charges scheme, due to the fact that council is legally bound by the Local Government Act that if over 51% objections received, the Scheme cannot go ahead.

Council was quick to lay blame on the ‘Say No’ campaign group that supposedly “confused the messaging” according to Cr Rooks who also went on to say that residents were offered “the cheapest and most feasible options and that council was very active with communication at all times”.

To quote council’s official summary, the key reasons why the community objected to the scheme was based on cost let alone damage to the local environment, so one has to ask where Cr Rooks thinks this scheme was cheap and feasible particularly as many residents begged council to rectify the drainage issues, which were historically inherent issues due to lack of council maintenance … and use dust suppressant as was used 15 years ago and lasted well until Council decided to dig it up just before the proposed Scheme was mooted!

This was a perfect opportunity for council to reflect on its community engagement methodology but instead, it was easier to lay blame on the residents in Surf Beach and Sunderland Bay who according to the project engineer “wasted Council money on this process”.

Council believes that the spasmodically emailed newsletters and adding information on the Engagebasscoast web page is an ideal way of communicating to residents but not all residents had access to online communications.

Council stopped mailing hard copies of the newsletter so many residents were not kept informed on the process.

The Say No group repeatedly requested on site meetings or discussions with ward councillors and the project engineer but to no avail.

Emails were ignored, questions to council went unanswered for so long that it took a Freedom of Information Request before council would even consider answering questions relating to the scheme.

This has been an embarrassment to this council, and all involved should be blamed for wasting ratepayers’ money on a scheme that could have been discussed face-to-face instead of giving ratepayers convoluted questionnaires designed to confuse.

Cr Halstead closed by saying “the flooding and dust should be considered as a matter of urgency” so the question has to be asked, council budgeted over $7 million towards this scheme, so use this money and rectify the areas that are deemed urgent and reapply the dust suppressant as was what was asked by your ratepayers originally.

If only the Westernport ward representatives - Crs Halstead, Le Serve and Kent (at the time) met with their ratepayers when requested, there may have been a different outcome – a special charges scheme that was environmentally friendly and affordable, leaving council with less egg on face!

Stop blaming ratepayers who voted you into your positions as our elected officials, who when push came to shove, did nothing to help ratepayers apart from pushing what council wanted, not what the ratepayers wanted.

Signed by a representative of the ‘Say No to the Surf Beach Sunderland Bay SCS’.