Worried community asking questions

Last month’s Toodyay Shire ordinary council meeting saw a full public gallery.

The meeting now at the new time of5.30pm saw a number of questions from the gallery.

Including a question from Hamish Dobie, a Toodyay resident who asked about the future
of the local library and whether it is safe in the long term.

He prefaced his question by saying that it follows on from rumours in the community
about the library’s closure.

Shire President Cr McKeown said, reading from prepared notes, that council has no
plans to close the library, council has not discussed closing the library nor have
councillors discussed closing the library.

“The Shire doesn’t have any control about misinformation circulating on Facebook
and the rumours are untrue”, he said.

He added that the Shire budget for this year includes expenditure for $25,000 for
drainage, brickwork repairs and painting of the library building.

Cr McKeown said the Executive Manager of Economic Development and Community
Services is actively working on expanding the services provided by the Toodyay library.

Charlie Wroth, local farmer and former Shire President, asked a series of questions
about the roadworks on the Toodyay Bindi Bindi Road, or Bolgart Rd as it is known.

Mr Wroth said the road was virtually ready for sealing in early November as he was
carting grain on it at the time, but in what he believes was an issue with the bituminising,
tender work was halted.

“Even with construction stopped the road had to be watered daily, many water loads
and given the time it was leading up to Christmas it would have been double time
and overtime – so huge added costs to the project”, he said.

He said that when work restarted in February because of the damage done over that period, another contractor was employed, several water carts, plus a stabilising machine used so more added costs to the project.

Mr Wroth queried the cost of the original bitumen tender as well as what the total budgeted cost of the road project was.

Aaron Bowman, Toodyay Shire CEO said the original budget was $1,968,329 and he took on notice the bitumen tender item.

Additional questions from Mr Wroth included: “When the total (road project) costs are summed up there will be a huge blowout there’s no two ways about it, if it is proven to be incompetence on an individual what matters will the shire take into consideration?”

Mr Bowman said he would take that question on notice.

Toodyay resident and former shire Coordinator Civil Works and Maintenance, Aldo Lamas, queried why questions he had submitted at the September, October and December council meetings in 2024 were yet to be answered.

Mr Lamas then questioned payments and the scope of work undertaken by a consultant in late 2024 while the Shire was also paying an Executive Manager of Assets, Infrastructure and Services a salary.

These questions were taken on notice.

Mrs Ruthven (and past Toodyay Shire councillor) asked for an explanation concerning a payment made to a legal firm for $5,362 and listed in the creditor payment report for January 2025.

This payment is described in the report as “admin – legal unfair dismissal”.

Mr Bowman said he could not provide an explanation as it is an employment matter.

Questioning continued with former Toodyay councillor Sally Craddock querying the number of council policies proposed to be “retired” later at the meeting.

She also questioned whether if retired policies were not replaced would this lead to less public oversight to which Cr McKeown said, ‘I don’t think so”.

A further question concerning probation performance review assessments of shire CEO’s was put by The Herald.

The immediate predecessor to the current CEO had a review done in 2020 involving an independent consultant, this was when Crs McKeown and Madasci were on council.

The question being, did the current CEO complete an end of probation performance review in the same manner as his predecessor and before the probation period ended?
Cr McKeown replied, “No”.

After public question time finished the council dealt with a number of other matters including a funding proposal for the Bejoording fire station and three Code of Conduct complaints concerning elected members.