Adelaide Crows chairman John Olsen seeks meeting with Adelaide City Council over second location for headquarters
Adelaide Crows chairman John Olsen is seeking a confidential meeting with city councillors about another site for the club’s new headquarters.
SA News
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The Adelaide Crows are making another bid to establish their new club headquarters in the Adelaide Park Lands.
Recently appointed chairman John Olsen has written to Lord Mayor Sandy Verschoor seeking a confidential meeting with councillors.
Ms Verschoor confirmed she had received a letter from Mr Olsen, a former Liberal state premier, requesting “to engage with council on a potential site for a new club facility”.
“A specific location within the City of Adelaide was not raised within the correspondence,” she said.
“I have asked the acting CEO to arrange a briefing but the date and details are still to be confirmed.”
It is understood acting chief executive officer Clare Mockler has expressed reluctance to organise a confidential briefing until Mr Olsen provides more details on which site the Adelaide Crows want to obtain.
Under the Local Government Act, a chief executive officer must justify why confidential briefings, rather than informal gatherings are being held, as no agendas, minutes or recordings are made.
Speculation is rife the Crows are seeking to gain support to purchase the site of the council’s main nursery on War Memorial Drive, near Hackney, to build new administrative headquarters, indoor training facilities, a swimming pool and gymnasium.
The bid follows public outcry that stopped an attempt last year to acquire the ageing Adelaide Aquatic Centre, which is costing the council millions of dollars to maintain. The council, which is under unprecedented financial pressure, recently embarked on a strategy to start selling assets.
Among the properties it owns is the nursery, which occupies 1.6ha next to the University of Adelaide football ovals and has a gated entrance from War Memorial Drive.
In a confidential presentation to elected members in 2018, former chairman Rob Chapman and former chief executive Andrew Fagan told councillors the nursery was one of two preferred options for the new Crows facilities. The other was the aquatic centre.
The council became engulfed in controversy when it was forced by existing protocols involving unsolicited proposals to keep the Crows’ plans for the aquatic centre secret.
Management are now attempting to introduce new guidelines around what public discussion should occur when external parties want to undertake commercial activities on public land.
During a meeting on Tuesday night, several elected members agreed that confidentiality should not automatically apply to unsolicited bids made by organisations like the Adelaide Crows.
Describing the aquatic centre controversy as a “fiasco”, Cr Robert Simms said private proposals for activities on public land could not be kept secret unless intellectual property was involved.
“We should be able to have open discussions about public land in the public realm,” he said.
“I think there is something seriously wrong when the community’s representatives cannot talk about public land and proposals for public land in the public realm.”
Cr Phillip Martin agreed, arguing policies for private development within the parklands had to be developed.
“What is our policy of private development in the parklands,” he said. “We don’t have one.”
“Until the council does this, then John Olsen, or anyone, can walk through the door with an unsolicited bid for the parklands”.
Cr Alexander Hyde said the process of dealing with developments on public land needed to change from council taking control through calling for expressions of interest in projects, rather than agreeing to investigate unsolicited proposals.
“Time and time again, when I look at things on this council which have been done on a wink, a nudge and a handshake many, many moons ago I wonder how on earth did that happen,” he said.
Cr Anne Moran said the council’s handling of the previous bid by the Crows to redevelop the aquatic centre had exposed it to unfair criticism because it had to remain secret.
“Everybody complained every inch of the way and we were constrained about what we could say by this stupid thing (unsolicited bid protocols),” she said.
“All you need is a powerful CEO and a powerful person and it is going to be a highly selective, highly secretive process with no consultation with ratepayers at all.”
Ms Mockler said senior council management were having a debriefing this week on what lessons had been learnt from the aborted bid by the Crows to redevelop the aquatic centre.
Originally published as Adelaide Crows chairman John Olsen seeks meeting with Adelaide City Council over second location for headquarters
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