Library Sale to be Investigated

COUNCILLOR Sue Abbott called for an investigation into the sale of the library building last year by Council, which was passed by one vote at the general Council meeting on Monday night.

The four Councillors who voted against an investigation included Cr James Burns, Cr Maurice Collison, Cr Lorna Driscoll and Cr Ron Campbell, but the five other Councillors voted in support of the investigation.

Cr Abbott said she ran on a library platform and people in the community still want to know how the Council thought it was appropriate to sell without consultation.

“A lot of people in the community are still not happy with the sale of the library building and have been communicating with me about this,” said Cr Abbott.

“I feel we need to have an investigation because there are community concerns and it needed to be addressed.

After the sale of the library building the general manager Waid Crockett and Mayor Wayne Bedggood insisted they were legally allowed to sell the building without telling the community, but Cr Abbott says that’s not good enough.

“That’s all well and good, but we talk about this pub test now and it might be fine legally but we are a country town and it is a community where we are all there for each other; it’s all very well saying it is legal but so what,” she said.

“I would have thought that calling for expressions of interest would have been the way to go,” she said.

“I think you would call for expressions of interest because if you haven’t tested the market how do you know how it is going to be?”

The library building was deemed ‘operational land’, because it had not been converted since the Council offices moved to the current Council building and legally did not require the Council to put the sale on the public record.

However, under the previous Council general manager Daryl Dutton, when the Council were considering selling the building they placed it on the public record and put out expressions of interest, for which they received interest from several buyers.

While the current general manager, Waid Crockett led the process of the sale, he will also be the person who appoints the auditor to investigate the matter.

“The general manager will appoint the external auditor to do the investigation and being a Councillor I can’t direct a Council employee to do it, you have to go through the general manager,” she said.

“I am hoping it will be done appropriately,” Cr Sue Abbott said.