Cultural upgrade supported

A rift between the Shire's president and his chief executive officer broke open on Wednesday evening over the funding process for a proposed $6 million redevelopment of the Margaret River Cultural Centre.

Councillors in favour of developer contributions underwriting a $1 million WA Treasury loan to kickstart the project defended officers during an otherwise orderly debate at the special council meeting, which was also the last council meeting before late January.

Shire president Mike Smart sought to defer the proposal that would see the Shire's strategic financial plan and other documents amended to reflect the new priority.

However, a majority of four councillors backed chief executive Gary Evershed's vision for the site, which now moves the project on to grant-funding opportunities.

The debate led to veteran councillor Ian Earl telling the shire president he should consider his position if he couldn't support the redevelopment project once it was approved.

"The shire president also needs to show leadership," Cr Earl said following a pre-written presentation which mirrored the other pro-redevelopment councillors.

"We as a community need to know the shire president will back the project.

"If he can't do that he needs to review his position."

The challenge was echoed by several voices from the public gallery.

Cr Smart had sought to question how Mr Evershed structured information the president believed encouraged support for the redevelopment despite no recent public consultation about the new borrowings or clear wider public support for the redevelopment.

"There was no due diligence done on it whatsoever. There's no community consultation about the $6 million involved in this," he said.

"The report is probably full of motherhood statements and not very much factual stuff."

Cr Smart said he supported a modest renovation of the Cultural Centre.

"My concern with that was the council was led to believe there was a very fine cut-off date (for applications)," he said.

"We've been pushed into this situation where we've had to make a very important decision in a very short space of time."

Cr Smart and Augusta colleague Kim Hastie also did not believe the project would stack up financially, exposing ratepayers to future ongoing subsidies of the envisaged arts-and-business precinct.

Councillors Felicity Haynes and Lyn Serventy dismissed the opposition's concerns at the same time as rejecting online and emailed comments from electors opposing the Shire taking on more debt.

"They are on the whole fairly misinformed," deputy shire president Cr Serventy said.

The centre was "tired" and the Shire had to spend the equivalent money on renovations anyway, she and Cr Haynes argued.

Cr Haynes ran through a lengthy refutation of arguments against the project and described the shire president's view as "mostly based on misinformation and personal attacks on council staff".

She said the argument against the proposal was "silly" and "self-defeating".

Cr Haynes also lamented public opposition to the project, which she believed stemmed from misguided resentment about the Shire's $12 million "gold-plated" civic centre project.

"It's small, petty, country town-minded," she said. "Margaret River is bigger than that."

The Shire's new developer contribution policy, which would feed into the project, was also approved on Wednesday night for review by the WA Planning Commission.