A few moments ago I was made aware of a notice in the latest Jamestown Journal advising ratepayers of the upcoming Information Night that is going to be Held at the sir Hubert Wilkins Centre (Aero Club Rooms) on 13th July, at 7:30pm.
Further information ios available from the NAC Ph. 8664 1139.
I attended the Northern Areas Council meeting at the Sir Hubert Wilkins Centre last night.
The Council chairperson, Ben Brown, led the meeting along with Roger Crowley (acting CEO), David Rattley (Manager of Finance) and Alan Thomson (Manager of Environmental Services) who all answered questions from those attending.
All local ward councillors and around 60 members of the public were also in attendance.
The new aluminium footbridge was discussed at length and it appears that the Council have innocently been “ambushed” by the original tenderer becoming insolvent.
The cost blowouts associated with the bridge were discussed and even though the Council is not happy with the extra costs encountered with this project, they were left with the unenviable option of having already paid out over $100,000 to the builder, leaving the incomplete bridge at the manufacturer’s premises, allowing the firm to declare bankruptcy and then attempt to buy it from the receivers at an unknown price.
So Council chose to collect the incomplete bridge and pay to have it completed locally.
The siting of the Eastern approach ramp for the new foot bridge is a requirement from DTEI to improve the safety of the pedestrians crossing the road at a safer distance away from the complex intersection and the length is as a result of the specification required for inclines deemed safe and suitable for gopher and wheelchair traffic.
The new foot bridge is a replacement for the old condemned steel bridge and is considered necessary because the existing road bridge footpath is deemed too dangerous by DTEI for pedestrians, due to semi- trailers sometimes accidentally mounting the footpath when executing turns.
Rates were discussed and some ratepayers hold the view that our rates are too high for people on limited incomes and we will potentially see ratepayers leave the town.
It was pointed out that latest higher NAC rates are still lower than the rates being charged by either the neighbouring Clare or the Goyder Councils and that the Council is effectively playing catch up due to our rates be historically low when compared to other areas nearby.
About $3million of the current debt is attributed to a waste water recovery scheme and STEDS that were implemented at the time of prolonged and anticipated further severe water restrictions.
The NAC plant is aging and in order to maintain local infrastructure and particularly roads appropriately, the plant requires continual upgrading that needs to be funded from rate revenue.
The new public toilets in the main street were discussed, with a key point being that only two tenders were received.
The local tender was for about $114,000 and a tender from outside our region was about $900,000.
The JDA sought feedback from the public at the meeting with 21 people in favour of Council postponing a budget commitment until next year, for brand new toilets to be constructed at a cost of about $160,000 in the current location.
The vacant Foodland site was discussed with several people questioning the decision to promote the construction at the new location.
It was explained that extensive research by Foodland failed to locate any available space in our main street to accommodate the required floor space and safe shopping trolley access to the car park.
Other towns have been totally shunned by large project builders with similar problems regarding their main streets, and the NAC were concerned that Jamestown may have lost the Foodland investment if suitable land was not made available.
All in all I thought that the evening was well worthwhile and hope that some matters have now been clarified for those that were not fully aware of some of the complex issues.
