In any good organisation, heads would roll

Finally, we get an admission, four days out from the scheduled opening of the swimming pool season, that for the second year in a row we will not have a public pool for summer...


Now they blame the site and the Health Department for the delays.  It is always someone or something else.  But they are not going to fool those of us who remember that the site sat empty and idle all last summer while the Council and its staff bungled the tender process. Work on the new pool only began after summer, yet the old pool was dug up nine months earlier.

It is interesting that new Shire President John Nicholas has his name on this release.  Perhaps he has put his foot down in the first few days of holding office and insisted on a bit of actual accountability and communication.

It seems his election ''out of  a hat" over incumbent Tony Pratico after a drawn vote went down like a lead balloon.  There was no announcement or media release announcing his appointment, and the Council website still lists Pratico as President.

This gives you some insight

From the Council website....

Insight Newsletter

The Shire of Bridgetown-Greenbushes publishes a bi-monthly newsletter, the 'Insight' to inform the community of news, events and information.
To view the most recent edition, click on the link below:
December/January 2015

Still no pool when we need it,

Only a couple of weeks now until November 1, when the Council swimming pool normally opens.

Last summer, families like mine with hot, bored kids were left looking at a hole in the ground where our much-loved 50m pool used to be.  We were told it had to be closed and dug up then so that a new one could be completed and open in time for start of the 2015/16 swimming season.  Well, here we are, and I don't think anyone is going to be swimming in the new one any time soon...

So why hasn't the Shire come out and informed the public that the pool will not be ready for start of the swimming season? Why isn't the Shire telling us when it will be ready? (Maybe they don't know.)

If they have bungled this project to the extent that the community will be without this important facility for the best part of two summers, why won't they own up, tell us what went wrong and be honest about it?

Again, I remind the Shire's senior staff and councillors of the core values listed on the Council  website, which include the following;

• Sensitivity to the impact of our decisions
• Honesty and Integrity
• Openness and accountability
• Effective communication

How to eliminate your critics

In a small town like Bridgetown, it does not pay to criticise to the local Council if you run a local business.

They will boycott your business and they might even try to make it disappear...

What happened the big two-storey building on the corner of Hampton Street and Steere Street, right opposite the Shire offices??

I am a part-owner of The Freemasons Hotel which has been offering accommodation, beverages and food in Bridgetown for more than a century, but it has somehow been airbrushed out of existence if you check this panel on display at the Council's Tourist Information Bay north of town.

 There is a list of accommodation providers...

Even the smallest chalet and B&B operators get listed and shown on the map, but not the hotel with 22 rooms on the main corner of town!

 

The information lists every other licensed premises in town, restaurant and cafe, but not the one right opposite the Council offices which they walk past (but never into) every day.

 

There is a big sign on the building which says 'Hotel' and a sign on the wall which says 'Restaurant' so even if they don't dare to darken the doorways, there is no excuse for not knowing what goes on inside.

I know how CEO Tim Clynch will respond if I ask him about this. "It was an oversight," he will say. 

I think its vindictive and petty.  

 

Written, Authorised and Published by Michael Southwell, 179 Blackwood Park Road, Hester Brook WA