The Mirboo North Pool redevelopment has been on the books at council for more than 10 years and after the 2012 election there was an attempt at Council to curtail its existence. This met with the traditional Mirboo North response to any attempt to close the pool and that was organised resistance!
The resistance team led by the Friends of Mirboo North Pool committee have had 25 years of practice since the pool was on the Council list for “closure” from when the Councils were amalgamated back in 1994. During that time, they honed their skills, and organised themselves to become a finely tuned team in step with the community at all stages.
From the time before 2012 that Council called a public meeting expecting 25 people and the committee expecting much more with an eventual turnout of around 600, the battlelines were drawn.
At the start of the 2016 election period Council had an amount of $1.8 million in the budget for the pool renewal. Cr Don Hill campaigned for a more realistic figure of $3.8 Million and after the election had been done, he worked with the new Councillors to bring them on-board with supporting the proper funding of the renewal project by educating them on the value and meaning that the pool had to the community in Mirboo North.
This worked and the officers brought a budget to council that year with the $3.8 Million figure pencilled in. All was going well until the budget meeting at council when Cr Edwards attempted to have the funding slashed which would have resulted in the pool not being renewed and eventually suffering a fate of closure or being handed back to the community to fund and run themselves.
After a stressful period of negotiations at Council enough Councillors were convinced of the need to keep the $3.8 million funding in the budget that the motion by Cr Edwards failed to get enough support, so the original recommended funding amount remained in place.
Don Hill said that at the time of these “negotiations” at Council that he was never really sure that the numbers would vote to keep the funding or go with the Cr Edwards motion to slash the funds. On the day and with the numbers in, some also chose to vote to keep the funding and so in the end it was seemingly an easy win to keep the funding but in reality, it had been lineball and could easily have gone the other way.
As design works continued and costs were running over the $3.8 million figure the community stepped up and raised a massive $1 million amount. Council came to the party and funded the gap.
The pool is nearing completion now and the committee has announced the opening date to be in late October.
The committee plan to launch the opening with free entry over four days from Oct 30th to Nov 2nd (Cup Day). Covid restrictions whatever they are at the time will be followed of course.
Pool looks absolutely fantastic-well done to all involved over this long journey and well-done Mirboo North!
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