The current overfed Blue Mountains City Council’s Liberal Party mayor must envy the Sydney Lord Mayor’s position. His grandiose multimillion dollar pet projects see him doggedly pursuing the politics of envy and all at local ratepayers’ expense. But the Blue Mountains is not Sydney. We have just 75,000 residents spread across many towns in an area bigger than Sydney.
His previous overfed Labor counterpart in Ward One has got his multimillion dollar pet project supermarket dubbed the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre. Now the Liberal mayor wants his own one for his own ward down the mountain.
The nearly complete Blue Mountains Cultural Centre in Katoomba resembles a Coles Colditz prison. It has cost tens of millions of dollars that the Blue Mountains with its small regional population cannot afford. When it opens Labor’s Taj Mahal won’t be staffed because there is no allocated operational budget. Millions in ratepayers hard earned money will have to be sucked by Council to pay for running the thing. Coles has got a cheap new supermarket out of the ‘commercial-in-confidence’ dealings with the LibLab Council. After all Coles and Woolworth donations to LibLabs require a return on investment!
Woolworths will get a second new supermarket in Council’s ‘cultural’ deal, so Katoomba will have four supermarkets within spitting distance of each other. Are the LibLabs gearing up for mass immigration in cahoots with The Greens Illegals Party?
Council’s ‘cultural’ deal came just as Council realised its gamble with Lehman Brothers saw it lose $5 million in ratepayers’ money. But what do LibLabs care about ratepayers’ money? They just jack up rates to pay for more mayoral pet projects.
They didn’t even need a so-called ‘cultural centre’. The Blue Mountains is peppered with vacant and under-used halls, buildings and empty shops that collectively could provide far more cost effective cultural centres distributed at locations walking distance from local artists.
Now we have the Springwood cultural centre gearing up. The Liberal big boy has borrowed $6 million to fund his own cultural centre in his local Ward. He knows that ratepayers will fund the loan repayments on his pet project.
But not sufficed with that, the big boy has sold off the old Blackheath airstrip site to some LibLab friendly developer for housing subdivision into 45 lots. Big boy has already committed $1.2 million of ratepayers’ money to install services to the lots. In the current underperforming housing market with hundreds of properties on the market, there is little chance the lots will sell any time soon.
This is consistent with the Liberals state-wide privatisation policy like flogging of electricity assets. The land sale will help fund his personal cultural centre. Big boy has already committed $1.2 million for design and construction plans.
But Springwood already has a brand new convention centre literally across the road at the revamped Springwood Sports Club. It has three conference rooms that can seat over 250 people fully catered for. Sure it charges for room hire as one would expect from private enterprise. But how many years of venue hiring could be managed instead of duplicating the facility with a multimillion dollar ‘cultural’ centre across the road? It is LibLab decadence to the extreme!
It matters not to big boy that he has antagonised the local community, because his voter base is in Springwood, not in Blackheath. Blackheath voter angst is such that they have formed the Blackheath Airstrip Community Group in opposition to the sale.
LibLabs think community consultation is some outsourced website called ‘Have your Say’ or ‘Bang the Table’. The arrogant bastards don’t take any notice of community concerns anyway.
It is time for voters to tell the major parties where to get off with their grandiose delusions.
Do not vote Liberal, Labor or Greens at the forthcoming Council election. Australia First Party, if voted in will certainly tell them where to get off.