TO DAVID WALLACE, PAUL MARTIN, SUZIE HASLEHURST, PAUL MILES, BRAD JOLLY and MARK McGOWAN.

David Wallace

Paul Martin

Suzie Haslehurst

Shire of York Council

Your Ref : - ‘NEW YEARS RESOLUTION’- RESURRECTION or UNFORTUNATE REVOLUTION.

All politicians, government departments and agencies related to the local government sector have acquainted  themselves with the contents of the Fitz Gerald Report. All now should understand its underlying message of openness and transparency required in reporting local government expenditure, including gifts and Corporate Credit Cards, and to engage in direct, meaningful consultative communications with ratepayers and the community, without the past, infamous, Shire of York rancor. That is whether they agree with it or not.

Your Shire’s recent uninformative, ineglatarian responses to legitimate questions from ratepayers regarding the YRCC strongly suggests it has not learned its lesson and continues to follow the DLGC’s and WALGA’s desire for Shires to remain mum, dumb and articulately unresponsive. This because neither trusts the overall abilities of Councillors and Local Government officers to act responsibly, particularly in rural Local Government Areas.

The department and the Minister responsible for liquor licencing were all aware of the Shire of York’s inept attempt to obtain a Tavern Licence for the YRCC that was only granted after the Director General for Liquor Licencing, Barry Sargeant, intervened and had his minions basically write the application for CEO Ray Hooper. Sargeant and others were fully aware of the strong objections to the granting of a Tavern Licence, (not an appropriate sporting club liquor licence.) It was a ethically, morally, socially and commercially inequitable and discriminatory act in a competitive business arena.

It was a reprehensible decision to allow a government body to obtain a licence to compete directly against similar private enterprise businesses in a small town and led directly and /or indirectly to numerous closures and failures of licenced premises in York. Sargeant’s written response to the granting of this overkill licence was there was no law or statute preventing him from doing so. You cannot get a more morally corrupt and egomaniacal statement from a public servant than that.

Relevant official documents at that time showed that the senior management of the Tavern and its Licence included Gordon Tester which, some may say, was a bit like placing Charlie the chimpanzee in charge of a NASSA space program. The designated, highly competent manager of the premises resigned in the first year and Mr. Tester disappeared to Esperance, only to reappear, then disappear again.

You can now understand why, and have some sympathy for, the licenced premises that chose not to pay the Shire for non-existent parking bays when a major competitor, the YRCC Tavern, had adequate public and/or private parking paid for by both local competing businesses, other businesses and domestic household ratepayers. This sum of $300,000 plus remains as a blight on the Shires Sundry Debt Register today.

In 2014 the Shire of York, allegedly, commissioned a Mr. Guy Lehman to do a comprehensive review and business plan to attempt to make the YRCC efficient and self-sufficient. Now, three years on, you are still fumbling and bumbling around and making obfuscatory excuses for your continuing inability to resolve this extremely serious issue.

The Council itself has been in office for 14-months and the CEO for twelve, a more than adequate time frame for half-a- dozen management reviews, development plans, discussion papers, business direction assessments and community consultations for one of the Shire’s most pressing problems. Maybe the tardiness is because the President has a conflict of interest in this matter regarding his close association with a particular sport, perhaps the Shire has not got its priorities right or possibly the wrong staff have always been chosen to, eventually, try and get the job done.

One word that appears still not to be used too often by this Shire is community consultation, even though the debt is a major community liability. Consultation may well be the very last object of the protracted enquiry process. Then this tactic can be used as an excuse by Council to delay any further action by blaming the time taken in the consultitive process, including lack of community response- or that the response is inconclusive enough to require a fresh go-to-whoa enquiry commencing in mid 2018.

What should be clearly understood by three current Councillors is that their term in office concludes on the third Saturday in October, 2017. Should they wish to seek re-election they need to put some decent extra runs on the board and quickly. This should include an already implemented solution to the YRCC problem prior to the release of the DLGC analysis of the YRCC’s financial accounts for 2015-16 and the recognition that, in rust bucket WA, 1/10^th of the population of Australia has 1/3^rd of the Local Government Councils. So the Shire had better be on  top of the performance ladder and not be considered mendicant.

Here are some  extremely simplistic business plan suggestions that could enhance the profitability of the YRCC, but for various valid reasons will not happen, not the least of which is because of the architectural design layout of the building and that it is fully licenced premises and part of a dedicated sports venue.

1. Lease the eating area as an Indian or Thai restaurant as some Sydney hotels and taverns do. (Probably not a large enough client base to be profitable for the lessee.)
2. Lease the gymnasium to a fitness center franchise. (Not a large enough client base for the lessee.)
3. Lease the convention area to create an amusement arcade for children, similar to  ‘Time Zone’. (It is on premises licenced 24/7 therefore illegal.)
4. Lease the bar area to a franchise selling local wines, micro brewery or micro distillery products. (Should this be feasible there could be a massive conflict of interest depending on who supplies the liquor.)
5. Use unused external space to create a Commando style training area for corporate team bonding sessions linked to the convention center. (WA corporate business is in a financial cycle close to a recession.)
6. Use the convention area as a display center to promote local business and its products (Not enough products to display.)
7. Use the convention area as a permanent display for memorabilia depicting the careers of Wheatbelt sporting heroes. (There is an impressive list, but probably not enough commercial sponsorship interest without AFL approval and support.)
8. Transfer the York Tourist Bureau to the convention center to free the historic Town Hall for other uses. (Not enough commercial uses for the Town Hall to make this profitable.)
9. Offer the use of the convention area to WA Universities as an off-campus classroom to conduct surveys and undertake specific education programs focused on improving the socio-economic structure of the Wheatbelt.
10. This could include development of drone technology (and piloting training) to assist in the, low level, aerial surveillance and development of broad-acre farming including micro-management of salinity problems, and include agricultural productivity in general. (Probably not enough academic interest but that may change.)
11. Use the kitchen, restaurant and convention areas to create a monthly ‘Slow Food Convivium’ promoting and using local produce. ( If you do not know what this means-ask) The iconic CWA Cookbook turns 80-years old in 2017 and could be the basis for a ‘Historic Feast- Historic Town’ promotion where you could ask for the assistance of such gourmands as the West Australian’s food critic, Rob Broadfield.

In addition the Shire of York is to hand over the YRCC to the sporting clubs of York, possibly with the sporting clubs receiving some remedial financial support from Mia Davies’ Department of Sport and Recreation to obtain appropriate liquor licenses and improve the restaurant and other facilities in the best financial interest of the individual clubs, and as a local ‘grassroots’ sporting association. This is the way it should have been in the beginning without the grandiose project scheming and its even greater latter-day liabilities. Premier Colin Barnett claims grassroots sport is the cornerstone of our way of life, You can double that with country life.

All this could be done tomorrow on the understanding that the property is to be used in the best interest of sport and the community and the debt is the Shire of York’s debt problem to be funded by other means- not by the ratepayers.

I will be extremely interested to receive any responses that include actual responsible action, and easily achievable time frames- amid the usual rhetoric.

Yours sincerely.

David Taylor.

Wednesday, 28 December 2016

The YORK RECREATION and CONVENTION CENTRE CONUNDRUM.

A York Reconciliation of Council Coffers and credibility is on: – The people of York deserved a high quality, modern, sophisticated integrated sports facility with a club licence to sell alcohol to financially support each individual sporting club, so what went wrong?

The YRCC was instead purpose built to be a monument for the idolatrous worship of two-Hooper’s and a Boyle by some sycophantic Council supporters- and as a hang-out for the same triumvirate as being the South East Avon Region of Councils’ future powerbrokers.

It was to be their Avon Valley eerie where they could host important conferences, hold court, lord it over the other SEAVROC shires, drink to their hearts content in their own bar at any time, while huffing and puffing to the best of their highly exaggerated personal abilities. The tab guaranteed to be picked up by local ratepayers.

Sports facilitation was to be only a peripheral reason for the build, with local government political power the main rationale for this super expensive and way overpriced pile of bricks, mortar and lots of glass (currently overlooking battered fake lawns pretending to be lush green playing surfaces).

Originally costed by its architects at $7 million, today’s debt is your worst financial nightmare- and SEAVROC never happened.

By the YRCC’s 25^th Birthday it will be a non-recoupable community liability of at least $20 million including the initial building cost, annual running costs, maintenance, loan repayments, inflation and, by then, required restoration or demolition.

The YRCC Tavern is a highly unsuccessful business and always will be. Under Uniform Capital Allowances legislation it may have some potential asset depreciation known appropriately as “Black-Hole Expenditure” if it ceases to trade for any reason. This, unfortunately, is the best financial case scenario on offer and means the Shire of York Tavern Licence has to go.

The community now wonders what is going on as a financially deleterious disaster crawls into another long, unprofitable year since the YRCC Tavern doors were flung open to a mainly empty and mostly dusty carpark.

The current cruel answer is nothing.

The Shire President, the CEO and the Executive Manager Corporate and Community Services make ethereal statements regarding management reviews and the development of discussion papers but basically they have not got a clue. Neither did any of the previous Acting CEO’s who were asked by concerned members of the community to seek resolutions, mainly from outside experts, since Ray Hooper resigned on April 15, 2014.

There is no magical mystery tourism rescue, no major additional conference business and no possible added value development, other than being turned into a massage parlour or a Donald Trump bomb shelter, and there will certainly be no magnanimous government benefactor to provide grants for its economic turn-around.

Basically, as so succinctly and eloquently put by others, the YRCC ‘is the white elephant in York’s pyjamas’- and will remain so until hell freezes over.   

What should now be finally revealed is- WHY?

The promised analysis (investigative dissection) of the Shire of York’s fiscal affairs for the Financial Year 2015-16, by the Department of Local Government, will include a year’s assessment of the overall financial performance of the YRCC - also the purchase of the Old Catholic Convent building and surrounds.

The YRCC evaluation will be related back to its initial cost compared to its annual liabilities including the construction debt repayment, the current debt to equity ratio, utilities supply cost, restaurant and bar purchases and services, management and employee/contractor salaries, public liability insurance, maintenance of the building and surrounding sporting facilities and where necessary- the renewal of playing services.

The Tavern Licence is a separate issue where its Licensee, the Shire of York, has been in technical breach of its liquor licence obligations regarding the demanded bar facility opening hours of  90 hours per week, and related substantial meal service responsibility, since the doors were opened.

Now all this will be reviewed, in depth, for the nature, materiality and plausibility of this community asset, assessed through financial statements taken from its core business- then evaluated against its liabilities, unmet community obligations and expectations- and WA Local Government laws.

Some local officials involved may break out in a cold sweat.

A similar assessment will be made regarding the purchase of the Old Catholic Convent building that should hopefully give the purchasing authority, a diminutive Local Government Commissioner, a severe case of tightening of the sphincter muscles.

The YRCC is a lesson to be learned by those in charge in Local Government.

In a democratic society where the economy is driven by private enterprise no tier of government should be allowed to licence itself to unfairly compete against established local businesses using municipal funds. Given this- nor should it be allowed to adjudicate against others seeking such a licence to do business in the community.

Local government is there to supply services that no private enterprise or community group can adequately provide.

The Shire of York has no alternative but to cease its ‘anti-competitive’ behaviour and terminate its Tavern Licence, and then ensure the required liquor licence(s) can be obtained by the local sporting clubs as should have happened in the first place.

The Shire should then be truthful to itself and the community and admit that the original massive, unreconciled, underfunded, over investment in the largest community asset, capital works project in York’s history is an abject fiscal failure. It will be a financial burden on the community for many decades to come.

No so called Shire instigated management review, business plan and directional assessment- and no amount of discussion between those who have no power, ability, ideas and funding to resolve the problem will make a skerrick of difference.

The inequitable profit to loss profile accumulated by the YRCC since the day it opened is mostly here to stay. It will always be a much needed community asset that is also a perpetual liability.

David Taylor.