Cultural and Civic Space rescission motion battled out at Coffs Harbour City Council
Protesters carried a coffin claiming ‘democracy is dead’ in the lead up to tonight’s extraordinary meeting.
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Close to 60 protesters - for and against the Cultural and Civic Space (CCS) - gathered in the lead up to this afternoon's extraordinary Coffs Harbour City Council meeting.
The special meeting was held to discuss a rescission motion seeking to overturn the decision made last Thursday to progress with Lipman Pty Ltd, who have already provided Early Contractor Involvement (ECI) for the project.
Lipman Pty Ltd has now sought tenders from the construction market to proceed with the 80 per cent detailed design of the Gordon St project which, based on latest figures, will cost in excess of $80m.
Iconic infrastructure like the Opera House is vital
Tony Judge, who has put his hand up for election to Council at the September elections, urged Councillors not to support the rescission motion and proceed. He had registered to address Councillors in the lead up to their vote.
He likened the project to the Opera House.
RELATED: Does the comparison between the Opera House and Cultural and Civic Space stack up?
"I challenge anybody in the room to go back and say that was the wrong decision."
He asked Councillors not to be the people who would have stopped the Opera House.
Cr Adendorff also made the link with Sydney's iconic building and added in his quirky style:
"Today I could do nothing, I was rescinded."
Cr Tegan Swan pushes on
Cr Tegan Swan moved the rescission motion and Cr John Arkan seconded it.
"Let's start off nicely," Cr Swan began.
She likened the huge spend to putting all of the community's eggs in one basket.
She fears it will impact the delivery of other services and was referencing the recent storm damage when she reached her five minute limit and was cut off by Mayor Denise Knight mid-sentence.
But she was later able to continue, thanks to a question from Cr Rhoades, and express concerns about the level of debt to be serviced when infrastructure is impacted by freak events like last week's one-in-500 year weather event.
Busy week on Facebook
Cr Swan has been extremely active on Facebook since the rescission motion was lodged after last Thursday night's meeting.
She posted a letter she wrote to Coffs Harbour MP Gurmesh Singh asking for advice on the Early Contractor Involvement (ECI) process and the legality of dealing with the one contractor (Lipman Pty Ltd) as opposed to putting it back out to open tender for the next major building phase.
Mr Singh referred the questions onto the Minister of Local Government Shelley Hancock and as of 4.30pm today he was still waiting on a response.
A Council legal adviser was on hand to speak about this saying the ECI process had involved a number of separate competitive processes.
He described it as a "triple competitive process".
In recent days Cr Swan had also posed a number of questions to senior staff.
The questions were outlined in a lengthy document and covered a number of areas from cost estimates to the proportion of space taken up by Council services as opposed to cultural and community services.
These were answered by Cultural and Civic Space Project Lead, Ken Welham and posted on Facebook by Cr Swan. Mr Welham prefaced his response by emphasising the number of briefings and presentations Councillors have had on the subject over the years.
"Throughout the Cultural and Civic Space (CCS) project, Councillors have been involved with and informed about the areas in the design to be allocated to the broad variety of functional spaces (e.g. administration office, library, gallery), other spaces needed in the building (e.g. circulation, plant, basement carpark) and cost plans," Mr Welham wrote.
"Workshops were held in 2017 to inform the original concept, then updated in the Concept Business Case (June 2018), at the completion of Schematic Design (July 2019) and most recently at the completion of 80 per cent Design Documentation (December 2020)."
Some labelled this unnecessary and arrogant with many thanking Cr Swan for her persistence.
Having a poll would be impossible
Cr Sally Townley noted that many people have called for the project to be put to a public poll.
"Generally it's a clear yes or no question but having a poll in relation to this would be like asking 'what's better, impressionism or cubism?' - it's not a simple question".
Cr Paul Amos says it's not value for money
Cr Paul Amos wanted more information on figures and was happy to be proven "a dill" if he was wrong.
"I hope the media reports: 'Cr Amos stands up and says we are paying 37 million for 17 million worth of office space'," Cr Amos said.
"I am solid on those figures."
He says that would be something like a negative 300 per cent return for the community.
General Manager Steve McGrath said he didn't know how Cr Amos was arriving at those figures and said the matter had been dealt with before.
Another tie:
After a break at 7.30pm the rescission motion was finally put to the vote at 8pm with the usual tie.
There was no need for Mayor Knight to use her casting vote and the rescission motion (to overturn last week's vote to proceed) lapsed.
This means the decision from last Thursday - to process with Lipman Pty Ltd to the next stage of construction - stands.
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