[dropcap style=”color:#8F9F59;”] T [/dropcap]he generosity of our supporters knows no bounds and this week we are offering one lucky paying subscriber the chance to win a limited edition, framed print by Warrnambool artist Ella Webb. (You can subscribe here).
Ella, who we profiled in our magazine shortly after we started last year (you can read our story here), has kindly donated a finely executed drawing of a Southern Crowned Pigeon and a runner-up prize of a pack of three gorgeous cards.
Ella has donated the prizes in the hope that they will encourage others to join her as a paying subscriber to Bluestone Magazine. We currently have 124 125 paying subscribers, but are aiming for 200 by September.
Paid subscribers just need to email editor@bluestonemagazine.com.au to enter the draw.
The first five new subscribers will be entered automatically.
We will draw the prize as soon as we have five new subscribers (update: we have 3 already, so only 2 to go!) so please, if you have been thinking about subscribing, do it now!
Thankyou so much Ella, for helping Bluestone to keep going and growing.
[box] Note: The winner will be announced here and on our Facebook page, plus we will contact you personally. Please note the main prize can be delivered to the Warrnambool area only, so if you are one of our wonderful subscribers from further afield, you will need to arrange collection.[/box]
Traders are right to be asking questions
[The promotional video above was made by the Warrnambool City Council in 2011. It reflects the type of work that Commerce Warrnambool now wants to be paid to do.]
OPINION
[dropcap style=”color:#A02F2F;”] S [/dropcap]hortly after we started Bluestone Magazine last year, I wrote a piece about the importance of transparency, accountability and a preparedness to ask the hard questions of those tasked with running our city.
At that time, I lamented the fact that people who were prepared to put their head above the sand dunes and ask the prickly questions were often howled down as being trouble makers, out-of-touch, or holding the city back.
Judging by the response to the Warrnambool traders who have stood up and challenged a proposal to hit them with a new levy, little has changed.
The men in suits have again rallied to remind the rest of us of who they think should run this city and that we best shut up and let them get on with it.
That has certainly been the tenor of the argument as to why Commerce Warrnambool, a volunteer body of around only 100 members, should be allowed, via the Warrnambool City Council, to whack every trader with a special fee to raise $600,000 for promotions and marketing.
The proposed fee, which is based on property values, would run for five years and increase by 5 per cent each year.
Traders have every right to ask questions – and lots of them – especially when the finer details about this levy have been so vague.
Most traders are more concerned about the high overheads of doing business, not adding to those expenses.
[dropcap style=”color:#A02F2F;”] A [/dropcap]s was revealed when we first wrote about this issue last week, numerous traders, including several high-profile business operators, said they knew nothing about the levy until it was presented to council as a virtual fait accompli.
Instead of questions being asked of Commerce Warrnambool as to why its communications strategy had obviously fallen short, the guns were turned on the traders.
In its editorial on Friday, the local newspaper spoke of the perils of conservatism, of traders ‘tying themselves in knots’ and failing to embrace change, and that, as a city, Warrnambool really needed to grow up. (As an aside, the paper has failed, thus far, to mention that its General Manager, Tim Lewis, is a general board member of Commerce Warrnambool. Update: a new board has since been elected and no longer includes Mr Lewis. He does, however, remain a member of the organisation.)
These traders are the same people who have busted their guts renovating the often rundown CBD properties that they are forced to rent at prices which can be on par with those charged in suburban Melbourne. (Indeed I know of one hairdressing salon that floods each time it rains, but the property owner refuses to upgrade the plumbing.)
These traders have stripped back floors, painted walls, installed tearooms, hired staff, filled out myriad paperwork for everything from an A-frame to window signage and now, for their sins, they work long and exhausting hours in the belief that they have something to offer Warrnambool: and they do.
But apparently they could do being doing even better, if only they each paid another tax.
The Wonderful Warrnambool campaign is among those already funded by the WCC. Image: Warrnambool City Council.
[dropcap style=”color: #A02F2F;”] S [/dropcap]o let’s look at how this $600,000 would be used and how many innovative ideas it might fund.
According to Commerce Warrnambool documents, it is broken down into something like this:
$150,000 for an executive officer and associated costs
$110,000 for “branding” of Commerce Warrnambool and a website
$130,000 for local promotional events – from speedway, to whales, to Christmas decorations
$100,000 for an annual infrastructure project of some description.
(plus, although it is not specifically mentioned, an extra $15,000 for WCC to handle the levy)
Using these figures, just over a third of the levy – $230,000 – will be spent each year on local promotions and physical works. So far, I can see little difference from what is already being done via the WCC, the Great South Coast Group and the Great Ocean Road Regional Tourism Board.
No wonder traders want to ask a lot more questions and three that come to the top of my mind immediately, are:
i. who will decide how the money is spent?
ii. what are their qualifications or experience to do so?
iii. how will the success of the projects be measured and by whom?
Commerce Warrnambool (and some councillors) have pointed to Swan Hill as a shining example of how the levy can work, so let’s have a closer look at that.
The city of Swan Hill is being used as an example of how the levy can work, but it has not been all smooth sailing.
[dropcap style=”color: #A02F2F;”] P [/dropcap]eter McNabb and Associates, who were paid a large chunk of the $35,000 in public funds that Commerce Warrnambool received last year, developed the Swan Hill levy model, so it mirrors what is planned for Warrnambool.
The levy has been in place in Swan Hill since 2002 to support a group called Swan Hill Inc, but that doesn’t mean it is popular.
The council received more than 380 written submissions, including 318 from people directly affected by the impost. Of the 318, 177 people (24%) supported it, and 141 (19%) didn’t – hardly an overwhelming endorsement.
The council went ahead with the levy, but not without its internal critics, such as Cr Gary Norton who was quoted by the local paper as saying:
“Swan Hill Inc has been operating for 10 or 12 years and what have they achieved? Lots of shops and businesses? Lots of empty shops?”
Cr Norton said Swan Hill Inc had not been effective enough in what he believed was a difficult financial climate for local business in Swan Hill.
“If we’re going to attract new businesses we need to reduce our overheads,” he said.
“High rates are killing the region. I urge council to squash this.”
You could swap the words Swan Hill for Warrnambool and the sentiment, for some, would be the same as Cr Norton’s.
So here’s an idea: why not tax the property owners, rather than traders who are being charged a levy based on a property value for a building that – in most cases – they don’t even own?
Then we might get a sense of how popular this idea really is among those with power.
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Falling Knowledge (featuring the book, ‘George Eliot’ by Robert Speight): one of the works by Jenny Laidlaw in her exhibition at Port Fairy.
[dropcap style=”color: #ddce8d;”] A [/dropcap]n exhibition of whimsical sculptures by artist and illustrator Jenny Laidlaw is in its final days at Blarney Books and Art, Port Fairy, with a talk by the artist herself this weekend (May 25).
Jenny, who lives in Jan Juc, on the Great Ocean Road, creates beautiful, eye-catching works by manipulating the pages of a humble book and then adding Prosculpt human figures to each piece.
As Jenny says in her promotional material for the work, “the figures sit atop their literary throne, creating a vessel for emotion, message and imagination”.
The “Pages, Pen and Paint” exhibition also features Jenny’s highly detailed and colourful illustrations that, once again, capture the world of fantasy and imagination through pen, ink and watercolours.
Jenny will speak about her work at a free event next Sunday (May 25) at 3pm at Blarney Books and Art, 37 James St, Port Fairy. You can also find out more about Jenny’s work on her website here.
‘Release’ (featuring ‘Walden, or Life in the Woods’ by Henry David Thoreau) which also features in the ‘Pages, Pen and Paint’ exhibition.
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A proposed new levy will raise $600k to promote Warrnambool, but would it not be better spent on actual projects, like funky public art such as this in London?
OPINION
[dropcap style=”color: #abccab;”] I [/dropcap]t’s a rare day when businesses ask other businesses to pay more – not less – council rates, but that is exactly what is happening in Warrnambool.
A group called Commerce Warrnambool has asked the Warrnambool City Council to introduce a special levy that would see 1300 commercial and industrial businesses each pay between $100 and up to $6000 a year for the next five years, with the first year expected to raise $600,000.
The levy, based on capital improved property value*, would rise by 5 per cent each year for the next 5 years.
And what would all this money be used for?
Well, according to the Commerce Warrnambool business plan, the first $200,000 will be used to employ a chief executive ($90,000) and associated support staff ($110,000), with the remaining $400,000 being spent on what can best be described as a huge public relations exercise.
Commerce Warrnambool, which started as a voluntary organisation in 2010 and has about 100 members, effectively wants to professionalise its role in promoting Warrnambool as “a great place to live, work and invest” (the same old mantra) and be paid to do so.
Instead of spending more money on trying to convince people to invest in Warrnambool, why not invest in the things – like public art – that make a city appealing?
[dropcap style=”color: #abccab;”] T [/dropcap]he group will also, among other things, lobby the council (in other words, the council will collect a levy that will be partly used to lobby itself) and help to promote events such as the May Racing Carnival, Port Fairy Folk Festival, Fun for Kids and the Allansford Speedway.
From from what I have seen, these events already have significant marketing budgets and, between them, attract tens of thousands of people.
Given the record number of empty shops in downtown Warrnambool, a proposed 5.5 per cent hike in council rates, and the economic times that trouble most traders, I thought the idea of forking out money for yet another public relations and marketing project would be shot down in flames.
But no.
Commerce Warrnambool says it has contacted at least 900 businesses and received between 250-300 letters of support. This means that only a third of those surveyed like the idea, but I am stunned that it is even that high.
The council, sensing an opportunity to partially outsource another of its functions, has seized on the idea and recommended that the special levy go ahead: the councillors will vote on it Monday night (May 19).
But let’s think about this for a moment.
Do we really need a special levy to promote how wonderful Warrnambool is? Why not spend the money – if we are going to travel down this path – to improve what people actually see and experience when they come here?
Perhaps, for example, some of the $600,000 could be used to help sustain The Artery, which has given a heartbeat back to the lower end of Timor St, but is largely funded by volunteers and artists paying what little they make to hire an exhibition or studio space.
Or maybe it could be used as a building restoration fund, where property owners are given an incentive to freshen up the many tired, peeling and grubby shop facades around the city.
Telling people to work, live and invest in Warrnambool is one thing, but ensuring the city looks fresh and inviting is quite another.
[dropcap style=”color: #abccab;”] O[/dropcap]ne of the Commerce Warrnambool arguments is that other regional cities have set up a business fund, so why don’t we? It lists Ballarat, Shepparton, Swan Hill and Mildura among its examples of similar schemes, yet if we pick just one of these – Mildura – there is a cautionary tale to be heard.
The Mildura Rural City Council collects a special levy on behalf of the Mildura Development Corporation and Mildura Tourism – both of which are subsidiaries of the council – to be used for the very sort of activities outlined by Commerce Warrnambool.
Imagine, for a moment, if instead of Commerce Warrnambool fronting up with this levy idea, it was The F Project – the local artists’ collective that started in 2008 and has around 150 members.
I am trying to picture the F Project president, instead of Commerce Warrnambool president Tony Herbert, asking the council to tax every business owner for a special public art fund that would raise $600,000 a year.
This fund, instead of being used for promotion and lobbying, would be used to commission artists from around South-West Victoria to create new works of public art (including murals, street furniture, sculptures etc) that would be installed around the the city each year.
Such a fund would buy a lot of public art and produce tangible, highly-visual results, yet there is little doubt The F Project would be laughed out of the council offices for suggesting such an “indulgence”.
Yet it is the tangible things – not just more words – that will ultimately make a difference to people wanting to visit, or move, to Warrnambool. There is no small irony in the council spruiking its Liebig St renewal plans from an empty shop in Liebig St, which is next to another empty shop, which is a few doors from another empty shop…
Money needs to be injected urgently into physical projects that will bring the city back to life – and we don’t need to pay $600,000 a year for somebody to tell us that.
[*The original version of this piece said the levy was based on 3 per cent of property value, which is incorrect. The levy will be calculated as a rate in the dollar based on CIV.]
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[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] T [/dropcap]wo very inspiring and uplifting things have happened around Warrnambool in the past few weeks and a woman by the name of Julie Eagles has been at the centre of both.
Julie, pictured left, with Alice Ugle, was one of the key organisers of the hugely successful 150th anniversary celebrations of the Framlingham Aboriginal Reserve that last month saw hundreds of people enjoy a day of Koori culture, history and pride in a community that is only 30km from Warrnambool, but which many people had never visited before.
The anniversary event changed all that and Julie, together with Alice and the rest of the organising team, artists, musicians, volunteers and supporters, created something very special that people are still talking about – and hope is repeated, if perhaps on a smaller scale.
Running alongside the Framlingham event has been Julie’s ongoing volunteer work as a community campaigner to save Warrnambool’s heritage, including the Fletcher Jones silver ball and the best of the former factory site.
[dropcap style=”color: #dc943c;”] J [/dropcap]ulie, as part of the Warrnambool Planning and Heritage Group and more recently the Save the Silverball and Fletcher Jones Gardens group, has lobbied for more than two years to see positive steps taken toward saving this site and, last week, it was finally sold to a developer who, it appears, is sympathetic to its heritage.
At the very least, Julie has been pivotal in ensuring the heritage aspects of the FJ site are now front and centre of the public discussion and many eyes are watching to see what unfolds: quite an achievement after 10 years of buck-passing over the landmark.
To be an agitator in a regional city is not easy, but Julie manages to educate, motivate and empower people toward taking a stand by stating the simple facts and offering alternative ideas.
For this, and her sheer determination to keep fighting, she is our Quiet Hero.
[box] Julie will receive a coffee and cake voucher from Rocksalt, Port Fairy, and we have another coffee and cake voucher for Alice Ugle from The Pavilion, Warrnambool. Thankyou to Rocksalt (Bronwyn and Sarah) and The Pavilion (Mary-Ellen and Jon) for supporting our quiet heroes.[/box]
[box type=”bio”] If you know somebody who you think is deserving of a Quiet Hero, please email us at editor@bluestonemagazine.com.au[/box]
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