The age-old line, “A policeman’s lot is not a happy one” from the wonderful Gilbert and Sullivan’s, The Pirates of Penzance, came to mind when discussing the Wagga Council’s ambitious $65 million upgrade of the Bolton Park precinct because it symbolises the difficulties ahead for councillors attempting to satisfy a range of priorities in a growing regional city. Adding to everyone’s confusion is that a priority is defined as “a thing that is regarded as more important than others”. It seems that there are a lot more essential items on councillors’ bucket list - and on the inventory of ratepayers - to be achieved or at least started by the time the next council election rolls around in 2020.
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Wagga Ratepayers’ Community Forum has lodged a formal submission opposing the Bolton Park master plan because “there were other facilities which needed to be upgraded or built that were important before Bolton Park”. There’s a fair lashing of common sense in its assessment. A forum spokesperson told The DA that the Oasis centre “had been losing money since its inception” and there had been significant improvements already to both the tennis centre and Robertson Oval.
Which all adds to the job of councillors trying to sort out priorities from the ever growing list of projects demanded of it by ratepayers and citizens and an ever-increasing list of responsibilities heaped on it by a Coalition State Government which right now has a Premier spending $2 billion on metropolitan sports stadiums purely for electoral grandstanding.
When the Oasis was opened several business people said it was an example of what the city needed and there were always going to be projects that councils were required to build for the whole community. They told me at the time there were projects that would never make council heaps of money but if their expenses could be controlled that was a fair and proper way to provide services.
The forum’s spokesperson said a long-time “priority” for many residents was a “summer only” pool in suburban Wagga; indeed, a former writer of this column pleaded for the cost of the Oasis construction to be spent on building three to four smaller pools in various suburbs.
Two senior councillors have said their feedback has been both negative and positive (the column’s has been decidedly negative) because as Cr Paul Funnell’s concerns listed, “we don’t have the resources now” and there was a critical infrastructure problem, particularly the sewage system, and the state of city roads. Mayor, Greg Conkey made it clear council didn’t have $65 million to even look like starting the project. Cr Dan Hayes, too, acknowledged the money was not available but said: “Putting out the early concept to get feedback from the community is essential to help us and staff know whether to proceed or change course, that’s what engagement is about”.
The four major issues worrying readers about how much money needs to be found and used are roads, Lake Albert, the Botanic Gardens especially and other parks plus better parking, preferably paid, from which council could use the money for the maintenance of recreational and sports facilities.
On roads, readers have listed the “back” road to the airport from Inglewood Road and, despite a recent upgrade of a section of Lake Albert Road a major overhaul including better turning lanes and perhaps a median strip, sections of Bourke Street and Gregadoo Road, now a major thoroughfare which currently has a couple of horror sections, among many others.
Frequently it is DA readers in their Letters to the Editor who hit the nail on the head and Sue Alleva’s recent broadside at council to fix Lake Albert first and foremost leaves no doubt where any spare money council has should go. “The fact that Lake Albert has been allowed to get to the state it is in today is absolutely disgraceful. We have the potential to have an amazing tourist attraction with lots of family attractions, including all types of boating, a water park and extra picnic tables”.
We have a state government and Premier spending billions on metropolitan based sports stadiums for political reasons when they really ought to be cutting the cloth to suit the tailor and encouraging those sports bodies to be putting their money into improving the facilities at major regional country centres. Public money for major sports in Australia needs to be reduced.
State MP, Dr Joe McGirr, said he learned within his first few weeks of being elected about the community significance of Lake Albert “to the responsible growth of the city’s livable and social cohesiveness”.
Public money for major sports in Australia needs to be reduced.
