Mayor responds to survey comments

City of Mount Gambier Mayor Andrew Lee has moved to respond to commentary about the cost of a survey for the proposed Mount Gambier Regional Sport and Recreation Centre and how it should be administered throughout the community.

At a meeting this week, Council resolved the timing for an elector survey on the proposed facility after the Local Government Elections in November.

“This proposal is the largest single infrastructure project in the city’s history and it has always been Council’s intention to conduct an extensive engagement process to identify the level of support or otherwise, once all the facts and costings are available to ensure the community is able to make an informed decision,” Mayor Lee said.

The survey will be distributed to 19,270 people on the Electoral Roll which includes both ratepayers and non-ratepayers.

To do this independently, Council endorsed an estimated budget of $65,000 from the 2018/19 forecast operating surplus to engage external specialist support to conduct the survey.

“Council must gauge community opinion through a formal and credible process. It’s not as simple as asking a question or conducting a poll on a social media website like Facebook which anyone could respond to, or even using an email program like Survey Monkey which also has limitations as not all electors have an email address,” Mayor Andrew Lee said.

“We are also unable to conduct the survey as part of the November Local Government Elections run by the Electoral Commission as the notices have already been issued. Council is currently developing plans, documentation and analysis on the project and therefore did not have the information available in time for Electoral Commission lead times.”

The Mayor said it was vital to engage a professional company to administer the survey to ensure the community can be satisfied that the process was independent when the results are collated and released.

In the meantime, Council continues to develop concept plans, documentation, financial analysis and cost estimates to inform the community about the operating costs of the proposed project.

Take a look at the information available on this page and provide your feedback via the "Have Your Say" forum, ask a question in the Q&A section or directly contact the team, listed in the "Who's listening" section on the right.

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