Notwithstanding the fact that many residents & ratepayers are excited by the prospect of the new Aldi grocery outlet opening in Merimbula later this year, few in our community will know anything about the popular addition to “supermarket city”, let alone the likely real cost to residents & ratepayers of enticing them to our shire.
For those who don’t know, Aldi is a family owned private German group that operates more than 10,000 discount supermarkets in more than 20 countries & enjoys revenues of more than $80Billion, although details of its profits are not publicly available.
Aldi commenced operations in Australia less than 20 years ago & since then has opened more than 500 stores, generating more than $8Billion in revenue & $180Million in profits in 2017.
Aldi has been headed our way for a while, having been named as the “anchor tenant” in the proposed development negotiated by the commercial geniuses at council with Romfam Investments in 2016, involving a no cost, no obligation option to purchase the old Merimbula Library site & adjacent land, independently valued at $1.73M, for $1.3M.
Up until February, 2018, the association believed that the likely cost to residents & ratepayers of the Romfam/Aldi saga had amounted to around $650,000 however, following the May 8th, 2019 meeting of council, it now believes that the final cost will be over $1M.
According to the almost incomprehensible report tabled at that meeting by council’s
Director Assets & Operations (DAO), residents & ratepayers are being asked to fund the acquisition of land from
Club Sapphire as part of the arrangements to allow for the extension of the new service road to the rear of the
Aldi building, at an estimated cost of up to $400,000.
This $400,000 has allegedly been included in the draft Operational Plan & Budget 2019-2020, although, like so many other dirty little secrets concealed in that document, no mention was made about it until now.
Indeed, the association contends that council has deliberately withheld this information from residents & ratepayers since 2017, in the belief that by the time it became public knowledge, no-one would care.
The association has always suspected that there would be an additional significant cost to residents & ratepayers in respect of the so-called “service road”.
However, while it is one thing for council to ignore the association, it is another altogether for it to deliberately deceive the community.
It is worth noting that even those with the sharpest of eyes would probably not picked-up on this 2017 decision of council, as the matter was only referred to at the bottom of the meeting agenda as “Merimbula Land Matters” to be dealt with in closed session, whilst the Minutes of the meeting simply confirm that the resolution in the closed session was adopted.
This given that there is absolutely no reason for that information to be treated as “confidential” when there were only two parties involved: namely Club Sapphire & council.
As best as the association can determine, the May 8th, 2019 reference to the estimated $400,000 cost of acquiring Club Sapphire land as part of the arrangements to provide Aldi with a service road access to its development has never been previously revealed.
The association has witnessed some pretty unscrupulous behaviour on the part of council over the past seven years, but it believes the deliberate action on the part of council on this occasion would have to be amongst its worst.
Putting to one side the cost of the financial abuse being visited on residents & ratepayers by this wholly unaccountable council, the association wants to know why the community should be expected to contribute to a “service road” at all, when its sole purpose is to serve the commercial interests of a multi-billion dollar business, while the cost to the community has already amounted to $650,000 & the final total cost is likely to be more than $1M?
Once again the association contends that council is out of control. It has repeatedly acted in the interests of developers & other major businesses to the clear financial, social & environmental disadvantage of residents & ratepayers.
It is also clear to the association that the current elected council not only lacks the motivation or capacity to rein-in these excesses, but has more often than not been a party to them.