Onkaparinga Council CEO Mark Dowd surrenders $6800 golf club membership — but won’t pay back ratepayers
GOLF-LOVING council chief Mark Dowd will repay $6818 of ratepayer cash used to fund his joining fee at the prestigious Kooyonga club, but he has failed to apologise, instead rejecting criticism as “unjustified”.
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GOLF-LOVING council chief Mark Dowd will repay $6818 of ratepayer cash used to fund his joining fee at the prestigious Kooyonga club, but he has failed to apologise, instead rejecting criticism as “unjustified”.
After more than a week of ratepayer, councillor and media questioning of his use of public money to play golf at a course far from the region he represents, the embattled Onkaparinga CEO caved in to requests to give back the money.
But Mr Dowd offered no apology and defended his actions in a self-serving two-page attempt to justify the payment, which will now instead go to local businesspeople in the form of council grants.
Last week, The Advertiser revealed the council had paid Mr Dowd’s joining fee at the club and then tried to hide it from ratepayers — a decision criticised in a report by the State Ombudsman.
On Tuesday, The Advertiser revealed the council also paid $22,000 in legal fees fighting the ombudsman’s investigation. Mr Dowd on Thursday refused to say if he would compensate ratepayers for the council’s decision to spend $22,000.
He branded media reports of ratepayer concerns about the issue as “unjustified” and “extensive half-truth press” but provided no evidence to support his bizarre claim.
“Over the past two weeks since the ombudsman released his report, council and I have received unprecedented and unjustified media attention questioning my professional and personal integrity,’’ he said in the written statement.
“The media has continued to run extensive half-truth press about the council’s almost unanimous decision to contribute towards a single once-off payment towards my Kooyonga membership.
“While Kooyonga is not in the City of Onkaparinga it is located directly adjacent to the airport and within minutes from the city, which unfortunately is where the majority of business is done in Adelaide.”
When asked, Mr Dowd did not cite any “half-truths” reported by the media, and nor did his media staffer Jim Tsacalakis.
Property Council (SA) executive director Daniel Gannon said: “The City of Onkaparinga has been living in cloud-cuckoo land recently and ratepayers are furious. Business owners expect bang for buck and efficiency from their local council, not the drama that has unfolded of late.”
On Thursday, Mr Dowd also repeated media reports that the ombudsman investigation which was critical of the $6818 payment included no finding of wrongdoing on his part.
Explaining that his golfing interests extended well beyond the Kooyonga course that ratepayers paid for him to join, Mr Dowd said he was a member of Blackwood Golf Club and had played at three clubs that were in the Onkaparinga — the Vines, Flagstaff Hill and Willunga.
The Advertiser has covered the Kooyonga issue since it was contacted by angry residents last week about the Ombudsman’s findings that the council was wrong to have given Mr Dowd the money and wrong to have voted to exclude ratepayers from a meeting in which they decided to reimburse the fee.
Councillor Martin Bray complained to the Ombudsman, saying he had been told when asked to vote for the payment that it was part of Mr Dowd’s salary package, not a reimbursement over and above the $328,000 value of that package.
Critics yesterday questioned Mr Dowd’s decision to repay the $6818, not to ratepayers, but local businesses via council grants.
Councillor Don Chapman, who this week unsuccessfully moved a motion that the council ask Mr Dowd to return the money, said the $22,000 legal fees spent by the council should be offset by return of the payment.
“Council already has a considerable budget for that (business grants) sort of thing,’’ he said.
“I would advise him to pay back the money because the council made a mistake paying it to him in the first place and to defray the $22,000 spent in legal advice to defend the Ombudsman’s investigation.”
But Mr Dowd stated: “The intent behind the once-off payment was to use Kooyonga to attract investors, locally and internationally to do business to our city. I will establish this grant to be used to achieve the same result’’.