As I've been saying here since it was announced, the public fundraising drive to 'help pay for the new pool' is a dishonest farce.
Last month's attempt by Council staff to dip into the funds raised so they could put a new springy floor in the mezzanine level at the recreation centre just shows what a con this has been.
Those gullible citizens who dipped into their pockets to help the poor struggling Council pay for its flash new pool must now realise they have been duped.
If the Council cannot find things to spend this on at the pool, and are instead wanting to splash the money around for unnecessary upgrades to other facilities they should give the money back to donors.
So lets recap and update;
1. Council announces it will spend $4m on a new pool which will be completed in time for the opening of the 2015/16 swimming season.
2. They can't get anyone to build it for $4m, so they get a roofing company from Mandurah with no pool-building experience to do most of the project for $4m. (But they forget to put a time limit on the works, so we spend a second summer without a pool)
3.We then learn that more money - $160,000 - is needed to "fit out" the pool. A public fundraising campaign is launched.
Greenbushes miner Tallison, which is managed by councillor Pat Scallan,
announces it will put in $100,000 and match any other donations $1 for
$1. This, in effect, is a cash donation from the mining company to the Shire of $130,000 to help it out of a jam.
4.The fundraising total is $220,000, so $160,000 from Tallison mine and $60,000 from others. But they can so far only find $124,000 of extras to spend it on.
What happened to the $160,000 shortfall that needed to be covered?
Because the project ran so far over time, that was able to be taken out of this year's budget for building works.
So, citizens, the whole fundraising drive was unnecessary. But having stuffed up the project so comprehensively the senior staff didn't want to tell us that, so they went ahead with it anyway and are now coming up with additional things like beach volleyball pits and gazebos to spend the donations on.
They even had the gall to try and siphon some money off for a completely unecessary new springy floor in the recreation centre.
And the councillors who are supposed to protect our interests simply sit by and watch all of this happening under their noses.
