$17.9mil figure not a ‘cost blowout’ says mayor

By Tim Howard

The costs for a contentious development in West Yamba have not blown out, but include amounts from related developments says Clarence Valley Mayor Peter Johnstone.

Earlier this month The Northern Rivers Times ran a story, based on figures in a Clarence Valley Council press release, which said the costs for the project to demolish and replace the Treelands Drive Community Centre had apparently increased from the tender acceptance figure of $16.25 million (GST inclusive) to $17.97 million.

The paper requested a comment from the council, through its media team, about the apparent difference in the figures, but in its reply, failed to account for the different amounts.

In response to questions to explain the change in amounts and also to explain information that appeared to shed new light on the council processes which led to the decision to go ahead with the demolition and rebuild option, the council made a short response.

“Throughout the project councillors have been kept well-informed through reports to council and a number of workshops,” a spokesperson said.

“Option B, discussed in late 2022 was not progressed as it was a 100% council funded project without a funding strategy and an approved budget to progress.”

This explanation was printed in full in the original story in the paper.

Cr Johnstone said he was at a loss to account for the failure of council staff to adequately answer the question, but said it the difference was an amount of $3.195 million which included expenditure on other projects in the West Yamba precinct.

The press release also recorded the tender figure at $14,778,230, which was the ex-GST amount of the successful tender.

Mayor Johnstone said it had been necessary to include the figure with GST when the tender came to council for acceptance, but the council did not have to pay the tax.

There was no inference there was a failure to understand the GST figures.

The breakdown of figures showed the construction phase of $3.195 mil, which included expenditure on a carpark, project management/site surveillance and design coordination.

This, combined with the tender figure of $14,778,230, brought the bottom line cost of the project to $17,973.230.

The council has funded the project with $11,107,882 from a Bushfire Local Economic Recovery grant, $342,000 from 2021/2022

Buildings Optimal Renewals Program and contributed $1.55million of its own funds.

It will fund the remaining $4,973,348 with loan borrowing.

The process to get to a successful tender was fraught with council doing two major backflips and attracting criticism from a vocal section of the Yamba community.

The first about turn came in late 2022 when the council resolved to change course from a plan to demolish and rebuild the 25-year-old centre to refurbish the existing centre.

At the same time the council was forced to close the Grafton Pool and the council announced building a new pool for the region at Grafton was its No.1 priority.

Responding to community pressure the council began talks with the BLER funding body to switch the $11.1 million grant it had received for the Treelands Drive centre to the pool project.

The council even announced the talks had been successful, but in early 2023 the news came that NSW Government had ruled the BLER funds could not be switched and must be spent on the community centre.

This outcome and the potential difficulties in finishing the TDCC project within the BLER grant deadline, created fears the council might lose the BLER funding, causing council to make another U-turn.

As planning for the demolition and build project was more advanced the council staff put forward a controversial rescission motion to overturn the resolution to refurbish the existing building at its February 28, 2023 meeting.

Council passed the rescission motion, but not without a challenge to its legality from then deputy mayor Cr Greg Clancy.

It has since been revealed the legal advice the council received from the Office of Local Government about the legality of a staff-driven rescission motion was not legally based.

But councillors were not told this was not merely an opinion of OLG staff.

During the February 28 meeting councillors were told:

“OLG’s view is that section 372 (of the Local Government Act 1993) only applies to situations where a councillor is seeking to alter, amend or rescind a previous decision of the Council. It does not apply to a situation where because of changed circumstances, a staff report is put up recommending the alteration, amendment or rescission of an earlier decision.”

But councillors were not informed of a qualifying paragraph underneath the advice, which was only made public late last year.

It read: “that the position is not entirely clear and this is very much a “vibe”-based view and does not have a solid legal basis.”

Also other emails obtained from the council and the NSW Department for Regional NSW under GIPA, revealed the BLER funding co-ordinators were prepared to accept a proposal to refurbish the existing centre.

Mayor Johnston said there had been some confusion about what the so-called Option B really was.

He said there had been an earlier proposal, labelled D3, which had become confused with the proposal to refurbish the centre that came out of community meetings in Yamba in 2022.

He said this confusion and lack of sufficient planning for the refurbishment option made Option A the only viable prospect.

By Tim Howard

A Clarence Valley community group, already the target of Clarence Valley Council legal action, has concerns another attack is coming.

The Yamba Community Action Network said a notice of motion from Cr Karen Toms in the business paper of this month’s meeting, claiming the group flooded council staff with emails, could be seen as a further attempt to muzzle them.

The group’s secretary, Lynne Cairns, said the Notice of Motion (NOM), following the threat of defamation action the council launched last year, was a concern.

“Is it appropriate to request council to use needless time and resources, targeting a local community group, by requesting council provide a report about the allocation of resources to respond to Yamba CAN Inc’s GIPAs and RFI requests,” Ms Cairns said.

Ms Cairns said it was ironic Cr Toms was concerned about council staff spending time on these requests, when her NOM would require