Council meetings - 18/19 April 2006 ...

Some interesting agenda items scheduled for the Council Committee meetings this week:

- Agenda item 16 - Water Supply Contingency Planning - a detailed summary of other water source options to get Toowoomba through the drought complete with timings for drawing on these reserves. The agenda makes it clear that the Water Futures project is not one of the options for solving the drought.

This is more information that Council has kept hidden from Toowoomba residents for many months. More recently, Council has backtracked on its "adopt Water Futures or we'll run out of water" strategy to admit that Toowoomba will not run out of water and there are contingency measures which can be put in place.

Now we know a little more of the details.

- Agenda item 20.1 - Briefing - Excessive use of water - Motels (spa baths) and take-away food outlets - a somewhat less detailed summary of the water usage of spa baths in motels and take-away food outlets. It includes wonderful statements such as "Spa baths in motels are generally of a 'fill and draw' type. That is, they are filled each time they are used and the water is then released to waste."

And the conclusion - "that Council note the actions that are being taken to reduce water usage by motels and take-away food outlets and restaurants".

- Agenda item 27 - Notification of expenses incurred by the Mayor between October 2005 and March 2006 - this period includes a lot of her promotional trips for the recycled water industry. Council is required to confirm these expenses.

Interestingly, the Corporate Plan Reference for the expenses refers to:

"1.1 Marketing the lifestyle and business (including education and health) advantage of Toowoomba throughout Australia and overseas.

1.6 Encourage new business to establish in Toowoomba and existing business to relocate to Toowoomba."

It would seem to be quite difficult to consider the Mayor's tripping around the country at ratepayers' expense to promote her ill-conceived sewage recycling plant as having anything to do with marketing Toowoomba's lifestyle and business (including health!) or encouraging new business to establish in Toowoomba or existing business to relocate to Toowoomba.

Councillors will need to think seriously whether they can actually approve this expenditure under the Corporate Plan references or seek some other justification.

In terms of Mayor Thorley's overall spending for this period, you will need to visit the Council to examine the actual amount. Council doesn't allow access to any attachments via the internet so Mayor Thorley's spending is not quite so public.

- Agenda item 31 - Confidential - Draft 10 year capital financial plan - a confidential briefing on the draft financial plan - it would be interesting to see how the plan deals with the State government requirement for the Council to raise the dam spillways and the prospect of higher debt levels if the Water Futures project goes ahead, particularly the need for an alternative to using Acland Coal for the RO waste stream.

See - Council Committee meetings - 18/19 April 2006.