THE dust is just starting to settle after the shock announcement of the massive blowout in costs for council’s Venue and Cinema Building rebuild.
Or maybe one should say the mould is starting to clear.
As we come to terms with a cost in the vicinity of $50m to destroy and rebuild this CBD building we the ratepayers need to know more about this fiasco.
Questions should be put on the agenda and answered including why more investigation wasn’t carried out in May last year when the black mould was first reported to council?
Let’s remember we own this council; the council doesn’t own us. Ratepayers pay all the wages, costs and upkeep of this city with small prop ups from the state and federal governments.
If any company tabled a building blowout report like this on the boardroom agenda, long and searching questions would have been asked. I dare say heads would also have rolled.
This is why the council needs to open up about this blowout and put in place an independent review that can be read by every person in this city.
Some might like to say it was just unfortunate and the council was unlucky, but I and many others are not amongst them.
The $50m that is going down the drain in this one CBD project could have been used to build a much-needed new Civic Centre, one where all the main seating is not just on one level leaving you to duck and dive to see a show.
Just to put it on the record again I was also outraged to learn about the wastage of the previous council in regards the CBD and the so-called fact-finding jaunts.
It was a disgrace and action was needed.
But all that is the past and there is no point dragging it all up as an excuse for the current fiasco.
This blowout rests solely in the hands of the current Harding led council and they need to fess up and tell us in detail what happened.
We need an independent investigation and if it comes this paper would be pleased to run it in full.
Council might also like to tell us if there is any truth in the rumour flying around town that says the Commonwealth Hotel multi-million rebuild is also blowing out in costs. If my maths are correct we have already spent $11m.
