TRYING to drive down Church St the other day, I was reminded of Lorenz’ Chaos Theory which postulated that the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil could cause a tornado in Texas or similar repercussions across the world.
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You do not have to be a Socceroos fan to figure that out - you can see the same phenomenon in our main street where the flap of a butterfly in the council chambers’ garden will start up a jack-hammer in Denison St.
The continuing catastrophe does not have to be a bottomless pit where grant (taxpayer or ratepayer) money evaporates into the ether.
Council, so desperate to climb out of their cavernous financial hole, could turn it into a lucrative money-making concern.
How? They could run a book on the question ‘what’s it going to be next?’
A simple little town street has already morphed through a series of transmutations including corroboree ground, velodrome, skate park and ten-pin bowling alley (with human skittles).
The future possibilities are endless.
Could it be an underground car park for the council’s burgeoning car-pool or the platform for a Port Macquarie type Glass House, or even, given the hole they were digging as I went past, a WestConnex tunnel to bypass the CBD altogether?
If council ran a book they could keep the heritage value by setting up shop in the old SP bookies shed in Hume St and catch all the hordes streaming into Woolies.
Rather than calling it an ‘eightbyfive’ slush fund, they could call it the ‘TwotoOneOn’ cement fund. I reckon it would have more chance of success than the current solutions being proposed in the present round of ‘community consultations’.
It is not so much the enormity of the figures being sprayed around by the council super-spreaders - although if I did that with the lime on my paddocks it would look like an enormously thick ‘snowjob’ - but rather the implications of their compounding a potentially disastrous financial impact on the ratepayers of the district. One scenario - an 18 per cent annual increase - on a relatively average $2000 annual land rate would climb to $4575 in five years.
That is assuming entities like MidCoast Water and other instrumentalities do not get on the band-wagon - or is it a gravy-train?
This, at a time when our demographics are becoming increasingly pensioner and self-funded retiree dominated and the federal government is cutting out most aged subsidies to States including pensioner rebates on rates and RTA expenses. Pretty sobering news.
What is even more worrying is that, given the dire straits of council finances, they plan to resume the operation of the town’s tip which has been one of the bright (privately run) spots on the shire’s economic horizon in recent years.
Yes, I heard the general manager’s argument the other night but it still does not impress me.
Grant money is one thing but that is what has helped lead us into the SP bookie situation in the first place and now they want to put a weigh bridge in and run the tip.
They got rid of one cash cow in water to the detriment of ratepayers’ pockets and now they want to dump on us.
Who is not to say similar harebrained schemes might strike the fancy of those pesky Brazilian butterflies? Almost makes you want to give up your organic principles and, figuratively speaking, bring out the Rogor.
