Carol Altmann – The Terrier

UPDATED: All seven of the new Warrnambool City councillors are poised to step up and ban racehorse training on beaches west of Thunder Point.

[I have updated this story to include Cr Max Taylor, who has replied tonight.]

With the recent release of the council’s draft Wild Coast Landscape Management plan, they are in the box seat to do it.

And based on answers to questions I sent to all seven councillors last week, they are ready to put this long-running and ugly fight to an end.

If they don’t, the WCC might as well set up a vegetarian burger bar outside 25 Liebig St and sell steak sandwiches, such would be the hypocrisy in a management plan that is packed – at long last – with ways to protect the wild coast from Levy’s Beach to Spooky’s Beach from further harm.

For some reason the Warrnambool Racing Club – apparently in defiance of the changed mood of many local trainers – can’t seem to let Levy’s and Spooky’s go.

This is despite the demise of king-pin trainer Darren Weir, sustained community anger, no racehorse training on the beach for more than four years, a loss of social licence, and the absolute privilege of training at Lady Bay.

Despite all of this, the WRC, according to a recent media report, just keeps picking the scab.

The WRC keeps waving a red rag….it might still come back in and use Spooky’s beach….maybe it will, maybe it won’t.

For this, we can thank the majority of former councillors who ignored the wishes of the wider community, agreed to the law change, split the place open, and left behind another shit show for the new council to clean up.

Given we now have fresh eyes on this old headache, last week I asked our new councillors two simple questions: the first was whether they supported commercial racehorse training in the wild coast area.

Six of those who responded said no, they did not, or as Mayor Vicki Jellie put it, “absolutely not”.

(Cr Taylor responded after the deadline but tonight said he was opposed).

Cr Angie Paspaliaris said she was a WRC member, sponsor, and a race goer, but she, too, was “hesitant” to support racehorse training in the area, given the strong community opposition.

Seven out of seven, even including a “hesitant”, is a whopping turnaround.

I also asked the councillors a second question, which was whether they would support an amendment to change the planning rules to once again ban racehorse training in this area.

Four of the six who responded said a firm yes, they would.

Mayor Jellie went further, saying not only did she support changing the planning rules, she was asking WCC staff how it could be done.

Cr Paspaliaris said she would consider it, and Cr Blain said he thought the council saying no to racehorse training would be enough.

[You can read the councillors’ answers in full here.]

All of this is a big vote of support not only for the community’s wishes, but for the draft management plan.

This draft plan really gets it.

It sets out plans for CCTV cameras to catch hoons, for unofficial tracks to be closed off, for ravaged areas to be revegetated, for the indigenous community to be intimately involved in future decision making and management, for better dog walking controls, and for the wildness of this area to be preserved for future generations who, like us, will wonder how motorbike rallies were ever allowed at Tower Hill.

Yet tucked in the middle of this plan is the steak sandwich – the racehorse training that would allow up to 100 racehorses a day.

The experts who put this management plan together are powerless to change the law, but our new councillors can.

That time is now.

[You can read more about the wild coast plan and have a say until 30 March here.]

Q: Do you support commercial racehorse training in the wild coast precinct? 

Would you support the removal of the planning amendment which currently allows this activity and, if so, will you put forward a motion to request that the Planning Minister remove this amendment?

Mayor Vicki Jellie:

I do not support racehorse training in the wild coast precinct – absolutely not.

Yes, I would support the removal of the planning amendment and have made inquiries with associated WCC staff as to how this can occur, and have received options of how this can happen.

Deputy Mayor Richard Ziegeler:

I do NOT support commercial racehorse training on any of the beaches.
I support the removal of the amendment and would so vote.

Cr Otha Akoch:This issue of racehorse training on the beaches is not popular as far as community is concerned. As a councillor, I will go with the community in supporting the removal of the amendment.

Cr Debbie Arnott:  I do not support race horse training in the wild coast and I would support an amendment.

Cr Angie Paspaliaris: I have a responsibility to acknowledge the community’s unrest and opposition that commercial horse training at Levy’s/Spooky’s provokes, which means I am hesitant to support commercial horse training in the wild coast precinct.

I am a WRC member and sponsor, a race goer; as a Councillor, my balanced view is that it is not unreasonable to expect that the Warrnambool Racing Club has the capacity to adjust and adapt its approach and operations in order to address and respect the environment, community concerns, and a changing society.

I would consider an amendment.

Cr Ben Blain: “With the information presented to us currently on this issue, I couldn’t support this proposal.

I believe there would need to be more work done with all stakeholders in relation to any proposed changes of use in this precinct. As far as I am aware there is no active interest from trainers to use this precinct at the moment. I think the current arrangements in relation to horse training in other areas meet the trainers needs.

“I don’t see removing the planning amendment as necessary, if council aren’t supportive of the the proposal it won’t happen…even if the amendment was removed, the planning minister can always reinstate it if there is support for the proposal in the future.

Cr Max Taylor: I am against the training of racehorses at Levy’s Beach and west of there, including Spooky’s.

 

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Ding! Ding! It’s last drinks at the Warrnambool City Council as we have known it for the past decade, with fresh faces stepping up for the election and the old crew failing to fire.

We may see, at last, a permanent end to what I will call the Anson era (aka, the dark, old days).

In this past fortnight we have seen a flurry of exciting new candidates – Jim Burke, Otha Akoch, Tracey Togni, Ben Blain, Cassandra Prigg – with more names yet to come before the 22 September deadline.

By sharp contrast, the announcement by veteran councillors Kylie Gaston (8 years/twice Mayor) and Mike Neoh (16 years/ five times Mayor) that that they will both run again went down like a lead balloon.

(Strangely, Cr Neoh also announced he would run for Mayor, for a sixth time, before that part of the newspaper story online suddenly disappeared.)

That’s because the ratepayers and residents of Warrnambool have wised up.

To put it bluntly, they no longer fall for spin, gas lighting, or the lack of taking any responsibility whatsoever for poor decisions and costly mistakes.

For while Crs Neoh, Gaston and the other five sitting councillors have all made a contribution to public life, they have also overseen a period where the councillors have completely lost the trust of the people – and for good reason.

You can’t talk about being open and upfront and then have four councillors knife a CEO behind closed doors just three months before an election, with no evidence or explanation as to why, and install a person from within whose five-year contract was about to expire.

All of this was done, of course, without telling ratepayers how much the coup will cost them in legal fees and payouts.

And who could possibly describe the rorting of ratepayers’ money through the abuse of council corporate credit cards as a “blip”?

Who does that?

Cr Gaston did and, in my mind, it is both unforgivable and so telling, because it reveals a mindset among councillors where public image is more important than public accountability.

It’s this mindset that has plagued our council for at least 10 years, at enormous expense to ratepayers and residents.

The current batch of councillors, except, perhaps, for Cr Sycopoulis who spent years challenging the dominant forces, have been part of this.

We know, for example, that the Liebig St upgrade – trumpeted as a huge success – blew out by almost $5 million.

And poor old Flagstaff Hill has cost more than $10 million to keep afloat since it began to die in 2009, including $3 million for a sound and light show that was doomed from the start.

Instead of telling us the truth, the council reports on Flagstaff Hill told us fibs, before they stopped telling us anything at all.

Ratepayers also spent more than $6 million propping up the Fun4Kids festival because the council had nothing else in the wings to replace it.

And just last year, there was no money to spend on repairing and maintaining basic things like footpaths and bridges, yet the councillors agreed to spend $775,000 on two toilet blocks and almost $500,000 on a single roundabout in Kepler St.

Many of the current councillors were part of all this.

Rates had to be increased by double the state cap, because we were so broke, yet Crs Neoh, Gaston and Anderson, as Mayors, kept reassuring us that the budget was strong.

It wasn’t. It was weak, and it’s going to get much weaker.

This year’s budget already has a $10 million hole from the impact of Covid-19, which is far from over, and the blowout will most likely get worse before it gets better.

We are potentially facing a devastating financial and social crisis in the next 12 months and yet what do we get from most of our councillors? We get more fairytales.

First we are told the council is considering selling Flagstaff Hill, but it’s prime Crown land and it can’t be sold – nor should it be sold – without good reason and special permission from the state.

The ink had barely dried on that fairytale before Cr Gaston, in announcing her candidacy, said she wanted to keep Flagstaff Hill, reopen the pub and…drumroll… link the whole place to Lake Pertobe.

This “new idea” has been around since 2013, when it was raised as one of the ways to stop Flagstaff Hill from bleeding to death.

At that time, the majority of councillors  – including Cr Gaston and with Cr Neoh as Mayor – pushed for the sound and light show…. and blew another few million dollars.

Cr Neoh, meanwhile, recently announced as his big new idea a walking/bike path from Lake Gillear to Childer’s Cove.

As candidate Jim Burke discovered in his research, this “new idea”  has been around since 2005,  a year after Cr Neoh was first elected – 16 years ago. (See above)

Nothing happened.

It’s all just more spin, more puff and more distraction from a legacy littered with waste.

Even if we wanted to believe in these fairytales, we can’t afford them, and the people of Warrnambool know it.

We are wide awake to what is going on.

Despite the attempts to keep us in the dark, we have been turning on the lights and we can see an entirely different future to one that is just more of the same.

That future, if Warrnambool really wants it, starts with choosing an entirely fresh council in October.

I’ll drink to that.

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