NEWS DESK
New deadline for basketball stadium lease Neil Walker neil@baysidenews.com.au ANOTHER deadline has been handed to the Frankston Basketball & District Association to comply with council demands over a new lease for an expanded basketball stadium at Seaford. Frankston councillors behind closed doors after May’s public council meeting decided to give the FBDA until Tuesday 6 June “to respond to the final lease offer being made by council”. Frankston Council and the associa-
tion have been locked in bitter arguments over terms for a proposed new lease as part of a $12.7 million upgrade of the stadium to include four new basketball courts and seating for spectators. Frankston mayor Cr Brian Cunial has accused the FDBA of “holding ratepayers to ransom” by “refusing a future council the opportunity to conduct and objective review of the rent payable”. Association president Gary Emery has said the FBDA fears council is trying to “take over” the running of the FDBA built stadium leased on
council land. The association currently has nine years remaining on its lease at the stadium and does not want to sign any lease that includes a council review of the management and operations of the stadium. “The final lease proposal has been the result of discussions with the FDBA, reflecting a fair and reasonable outcome for the sporting community and the ratepayers of Frankston,” Cr Cunial said in a statement. “Depending on the FDBA’s response, a further report will go to the 13 June council meeting. In the
event of the FDBA not agreeing to these terms, council will then consider how to best proceed with building the project without the FDBA’s involvement.” FDBA president Gary Emery confirmed the association had received a letter from council about a new lease deadline, the latest in a series of final deadlines imposed by council during negotiations. “We intend to meet the deadline if possible,” Mr Emery said. Council initially committed $4 million of ratepayers’ money to the stadium upgrade alongside $2.5 million
of state government money and $5.2 million of federal government money from taxpayers. The association was prepared to pitch in $1 million of members’ money to stage one of the stadium upgrade but council waived this offer after the FDBA said council was “double dipping” its members by also tripling annual rent to about $130,000. It is understood that the new lease offer would see the FDBA pay about $80,000 annually after the stadium expansion but a review of operations remains a sticking point.
Police patrol Man scammed AN elderly man was scammed of $4800 by a conman falsely claiming to be an Optus representative, 11am, Friday 26 May. The victim, a resident of a retirement village in McLeod Rd, Patterson Lakes, received a phone call from a man possibly with a Canadian accent claiming he was from Optus and that the company had mistakenly paid $2500 into his account. The victim was instructed to buy that amount of Apple iTunes vouchers from the Patterson Lakes Coles and Woolworths stores, which he did. The victim was then told to scan the rear of the vouchers, showing the bar code and security code number. The victim was then instructed to download an app on his computer called TeamViewer – which allowed the offenders to gain access to his computer and obtain details of the vouchers. The scam continued over two days during which the victim was told to buy more iTunes vouchers in the same way, eventually buying forty-eight $100 vouchers. The offender left a false mobile number as his point of contact. An Apple store employee told police this type of scam was “becoming very common”. Once the security code on the back of the card is revealed the voucher is spent.
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Chelsea Mordialloc Mentone News 7 June 2017