By Dominique Tassell
Southern Downs Regional Council outlined its core business at last week’s information session, giving the community an opportunity to get updates.
While Stanthorpe library and art gallery are undergoing work, chief executive officer Dave Burges said it’s “business as usual” at the Warwick library.
He said council is currently looking at what to do with the space in between the library and art gallery and “making that a more user-friendly and usable space”.
Mayor Vic Pennisi said they are currently looking at connecting the art gallery to the library.
“What used to be delivered in libraries fifty years ago, when I was knee-high to a grasshopper, what used to be delivered there has changed and morphed over time and going forward it will morph into something else,” he said.
“Libraries today you can, you build those robots and robotics and those sorts of things.”
“Libraries have morphed into something else and necessity is the mother of invention and as time moves on I have no doubt that the offer in the libraries will change over time.
“But it’ll be based on the public need and what the public feels. It’ll just morph into something else over time.”
Locals have expressed that the library is a place that could be utilised more to give space to youth in the region.
Mayor Pennisi referenced the Youth Council in response and said they try to use that group to highlight what is important to those groups.
Regarding youth services, Mayor Pennisi stated that the Youth Council wanted sport that wasn’t competitive to be available in the region, so they added the come and try days to the Stanthorpe Sports Association lease.
When asked about concerns regarding affordability at local pools and fitness centres such as WIRAC, Mr Burges stated that there are no plans for council to have an additional pool.
When asked for any plans to make WIRAC more affordable or accessible, the chief executive officer replied “Queen Mary Falls”.
Mr Burges and Mayor Pennisi stated the fees at places like WIRAC are put forward to council to adopt in the fees and charges every year.
Mayor Pennisi said, “if you ask me what it’s worth to go into WIRAC I wouldn’t have a clue because there’s thousands of those fees and charges”.
“If there’s a request from the public to review them during the budget process, we’ll review them.
“Anything that you don’t make out of WIRAC, the ratepayer will subsidise the rest.
“We already subsidise WIRAC to the tune of about $600,000.
“It was a lot more than that, it was over a million and when the YMCA took over, they’re obviously better placed to run those types of facilities than what we are, and the running costs were seriously reduced.”
We requested to have the WIRAC costs, broken down into capital works and operating costs, for before and after the YMCA was involved sent through to us.
A Council spokesperson stated they would provide this, but it would take time.
Mayor Pennisi stated that WIRAC has “been neglected for too long, we need to fix it and bring it up to scratch.”
He acknowledged it “certainly uses up a lot of our resources.”
When asked whether there had been an assessment by staff on what it would cost to just build a new pool in comparison to upgrading the existing facilities, Mayor Pennisi stated council had those conversations a few years ago.
He stated that council made a decision to “bring this one up to the speck that’s required”.
He said that maintaining the current facilities and building new ones would both present issues.
“We have an obligation and a responsibility,” he said.
“There’s no one going to come and take the whole thing over.
It’s a community service obligation, we provide swimming pools all over the region and they all run at a loss. There isn’t any that make a profit.”
He stated that the pool is the most costly of the facilities to maintain.
“I think if you wind the clock back, I don’t know that they would have put an indoor pool in that fashion the way that they did.
“They probably would have left it as a diving pool and the Olympic pool that was there and maybe had something less expensive somewhere else to cater for the winter months ’cause the heated pool is really catering for the winter months.”
Mayor Pennisi stated that council can reverse any decision made by a previous council if locals feel strongly about it.
Regarding other pools in the region, a council spokesperson stated that works will commence on the solar heating at Killarney and Allora pools when they are closed for winter.
Regarding council’s waste strategy, Mayor Pennisi stated that “there will be conversations going forward on how we’re going to look at waste holistically”.
He said conversations regarding a recycling facility in collaboration with other councils is “still ongoing”.
“I don’t know what the outcome of that will be, ultimately.”
“It’s a big issue and an issue that we need to…it’s costing more and more money because of compliance every year and the only place we can get that extra money is from ratepayers.
“So if we can find a better way we need to try and explore a better way.”
