Bright idea can settle things down

I AM faced with a conundrum and I cannot settle it.
Four Oaks Ward councillor and deputy mayor Rob Wilson is becoming more and more embroiled in a controversy over $30,000 worth of light towers he ordered for Strathaird Reserve, Narre Warren South.
Casey Council did not approve the order and we cannot find anyone who did, so the buck stops with Cr Wilson.
The council now has $30,000 worth of light poles, but claims it is not responsible for the debt and will not pay the account.
Probably the debt at this stage is less than the bandied $30,000 because the project is incomplete.
But where does this all leave the manufacturer, DBE Floodlighting?
At this stage ‘up the creek with four poles’.
One thing I am sure of is that the council will eventually settle the debt, whether through a government grant or coughing up ratepayers’ money. Cr Wilson would have been sure of this from the start.
The conundrum is how will this money be paid?
One chance appears to have been lost and, in the process, Cr Wilson may have landed himself in more trouble.
My view is that council officers have been looking for ways to resolve the situation and to have the manufacturer paid.
In this process they put before the Tuesday 6 December council meeting a list of applications for government grants.
Near the top of the list was an item $19,143 for training floodlights to be erected at Strathaird Reserve for the Narre Warren South Junior Football Club.
I was told there was a high probability that the application would have been successful.
This would have solved Cr Wilson’s and ‘my’ conundrum over who pays for the light towers.
The project cost for the towers was listed at $31,905 with a $12,000 football club contribution, $762 council input, and a $19,143 government grant.
That’s a fair deal.
I thought as the item came up ‘wow this is a cop out for Cr Wilson’, but he successfully moved that the matter be heard in camera.
Then he dropped another clanger by saying that he did not have a pecuniary interest and held no conflict of interest in the matter.
This left him free to vote on it going in camera and again on the item when it was decided in camera.
The Local Government Department just might have a special interest in his ‘non interest’ because it was sheer rot for him to say that he didn’t have a conflict of interest.
Strict laws prohibit a councillor with a pecuniary or a conflict of interest in an issue from voting.
However, the in camera committee removed the light towers application from the list of grant applications.
Why?
Guess who moved that the application for a grant for the towers not proceed.
We have to guess because it was in camera and no one ‘tells’.
There are three primary clubs at the ground involved in this tussle, the Maranatha Cricket Club, the Narre Warren South Sports Club and the Narre Warren Lions Junior Football Club.
What I see is a cricket club that runs the show with Cr Wilson its secretary, the sports club an unregistered body beholden to the cricket club, and the football club beholden to the sports club.
I understand that the football club had its financial affairs managed by the sports club and therefore by the cricket club.
Edrington Ward councillor Mick Morland, who is a sporting man, said the matter was very complex and would not comment because it was in camera.
This didn’t please me, in camera or not, because it should all be out in the open.
I cannot be convinced that the council could not have submitted the application for a grant to fund the light towers, despite the ‘complexities’.
The council owns the ground and it is not beyond the realm of possibility that it could take control of the mess going on at Strathaird, sort it, and get the light poles erected.
One underlying factor in this stupid argument is that everyone agrees the training lights are needed.