SunRRA - Municipal offices? Community calls for status quo

Municipal offices? Community calls for status quo

Saturday, 12 September 2009

Among the increasingly bold and shadowy moves seen at Brimbank Council in the wake of the Ombudsman's report, CEO Nick Foa has decided he wants to build a new, 45-million dollar civic precinct at ratepayers' expense. So he engaged a communications firm to inform the community and provide a forum for debate and discussion.

Putting the cart as ever before the horse, the two main questions he asked were: Where should a new civic precinct be located and, what should it look like?

It was the start of another public relations disaster for Brimbank Council, with accusations of misleading information and cover up aired in the local press.

Four forums were held in St Albans, Cairnlea, Keilor and Sunshine, with over 200 people attending: 80 or so at St Albans, 25 at Cairnlea, 42 at Keilor and about 56 at Sunshine. The resident group was bolstered by a core group of people who turned up at all four occasions. That was part of the learning exercise for council, to understand that there is such a significant level of interest in this project and not to underestimate those views. Some key messages came out of the consultation:

1. Show us the business case for a new civic precinct. It was pretty clear that this was a strong theme presented throughout these conversations. There were demands for a better cost-benefit analysis, new information about retrofitting old buildings, and the need for clarification of the real benefits to staff and community. People wanted to see what was the real business case behind this. They wanted to know - and still want to know - whether this project is in fact viable.

2. Errington Reserve should not be on the list. This was clearly the loudest message observed at all forums. St Albans certainly provided the most passionate and heated response to this area, but by and large there was a genuine community concern and on some occasion outrage that Errington was in fact a prefferred site.

There was strong rejection of the notion that Errington be used for such a facility, that public open space should be used for such a facility, and there was an articulate and forceful voice that was often heard about the heritage values and benefits of the existing community ownership of the land at Errington Reserve.

The loss of public open space suggests that there was a stong moral imperative of council to understand that it was gifted for the purposes of public open space and that it should remain as such. The council subsequently voted to remove Errington Reserve from the list.

3. Is this going to impact delivery of other services and facilities? Will this distract council from other business? There were certainly concerns on repeated occasions about council's fiscal capacity and ability to deliver on the project.

There were several concerns that council's previous debt and the sale of community assets posed questions about whether a civic precinct is viable, whether we can afford it and whether council is in a position to actually deliver this project. And clearly there was an undertone of mistrust going through the process. The key message there is, can the promise be delivered while maintaining services and facilities across council?

4. Council need to better understand the ideas of a centralised facility vs a decentralised facility. Given Brimbank is one of the largest municipalities in terms of land mass in Victoria, central facilities could make it more difficult for residents to travel to access council services. The decentralised model is one that needs to be considered, rather than a centralised model of council services.

5. A theme running through the sessions was, is there a need for a civic precinct at all? There were calls by participants for a referendum on whether a civc precinct should be built. There was a concern in the sessions that people hadn't had a chance to contribute to the business case. Several participants felt that council were jumping the gun - that that WHERE and the WHAT should not be asked until we understand the WHY.

Some participants suggested there needs to be a full audit of existing facilities, before we start jumping into spending many millions of dollars on new facilities.

6. In addition there was a sense of resignation from some of the participants that the decision to build a new facility was in fact already made, and there was no real opportunity to engage in the conversation. This is something that needs to be urgently addressed.

7. One clear message from the community was, we are going to be watching this project with interest. Council needs to understand that this project is not one that can be shut up quickly. There is certainly a feeling of concern, anxiety and apprehension in the community broadly about this, and this will be prevalent until such time as the process is made transparent.

8. It is worth noting that there was a core group of residents who participated in one way or another during these forums, which changed the nature of the conversations. Firstly it did ensure that key messages such as outlined above were made regularly and forcefully and sometimes in an agitated state, but at the same time suggested there is a level of interest and capacity for the community to be engaged around these topics.

9. As to the question of where the new civic precinct should be located, the answer was effectively many places, but not at Errington Reserve. A series of other candidate locations were identified - Keilor Downs, the Cairnlea site, Broadcast Australia site, Sunshine Energy Park, many were identified. This was something the participants did have views on.

Not all conversations were however confrontational. They were positive in some respects, and ideas were forthcomning about what services or facilites could be located at the new civic precinct. Prompted with ideas about new content, new ideas, new facilities, new activities, co location of facilities, co location of government enterprises, youth centres, eco centres, there were quite a few positive ideas.

There were many calls about the need for a community centre and arts hub, there is a real need within the city for auditoriums and performance spaces for all sorts of demographics in the community. There was a real interest for an eco centre and demonstration place where sustainable development can be shown to be living and breathing and working in a suburban environment.

Community gardens should be part of any civic precinct. Clearly meeting spaces, conference-style facilities were candidates for what people wanted to see if something like this did appear. Full disabled access and landscaped gardens were key issues. But a key message also: this should not be a palace for council. This should be a peoples' place, and this should be a place where people feel comfortable and part of our community.

In summary there is a clear interest in this topic by constituents, it is a matter that will deserve consideration, and council needs to demonstrate a better understanding of the business case, communicate why they are doing this, and then start talking about how it might go forward.

(With thanks to Capire Communications for presenting their summary of the community feedback.)

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