Keep our pool
Now listen here: Mick Nicholls of Mirboo North was vocal with his opinions of the pool’s funding plan.
THE Mirboo North community is calling on South Gippsland Shire Council to help them save the town’s pool from possible closure.
Six hundred people packed the Old Shire Hall in Mirboo North last Tuesday night for a public meeting to discuss council’s aquatic strategy. That plan earmarks the pool for no additional council funding, other than maintenance.
Cr David Lewis said the community just wanted to be given the same chance to retain their pool as offered to communities at Leongatha, Korumburra and Toora.
Council will seek future grants to upgrade those pools, but not for pools at Mirboo North, Foster and Poowong. Instead, those communities must raise all local funding necessary to support grant applications.
“All they (people at Mirboo North) are asking for is for equality of opportunity so that if people raise the money towards their pool, the council will match that money which is what we have always done in the past,” Cr Lewis said at last Wednesday’s council meeting.
The community could then confidently seek grant funding for upgrades, knowing they will receive financial support from council, Cr Lewis said.
The Mirboo North hall remained eerily silent as council’s recreation co- ordinator Ian Murphy and mayor Cr Warren Raabe ran through their Strategic Direction for Aquatic Facilities in South Gippsland draft presentation.
It outlined the projected cost of the Mirboo North pool to be at around $758, 432 over the next five years.
And while patronage at the pool has fluctuated in recent years, Cr Raabe was under no illusions as to the importance of the facility to the townspeople.
“This huge turnout shows undoubtedly what you think of your pool,” he said.
One incensed resident said: “There are a lot of people here tonight and no one at Korumburra (pool meeting recently),
“How is it that they’re getting a master plan for a pool they obviously don’t care about?”
The mayor responded: “The threat of closure brought you there tonight. Yet nowhere in the document does it say we’re closing the pool. We are committing to giving the pool three quarters of a million dollars over the next five years.”
The exact figure is $758, 432, with $218, 852 to be spent next year.
Long-time local resident Lyn Skinner felt no compassion from the mayor.
“We asked for a grant to upgrade the change-rooms and it was refused, which is stopping people coming to this pool,” she said.
“To hell with your figures. We all pay rates and for what? I don’t know what you spend it on. The only thing we have is this pool; you’d better do something about this because this is our money.”
The proposed $2.5 million funding for South Gippsland SPLASH over the next five years did not sit well with the Mirboo North residents.
The loud and at times confrontational crowd scoffed at suggestions the pool in Leongatha was a community (rather than a town) pool, and instead asked why their pool, which had been around for 101 years, was not being looked after.
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