THE FUTURE
NOOSA COUNCIL RULES THE FUTURE MUST STICK TO THE ORIGINAL PRESS RELEASE
Libraries lending e-bikes, digital hubs teaching new technology and oysters restoring rivers. Three shocking cases of community projects failing to remain exactly as advertised.
NOOSA - Residents are being reminded that public facilities may provide community benefits, but only those that were properly anticipated in the original publicity material.
The Peregian Digital Hub, for example, was promoted in 2017 with an expectation of financial return. It has since expanded into technology, business support, creative industries and training - apparently without first obtaining written permission from the past.
Meanwhile, local libraries have branched out from books into digital learning, technology assistance and e-bike lending. Noosa Libraries, once a humble institution devoted to lending books, has apparently failed to understand that it was supposed to remain exactly as it started. Today, residents can borrow GoPro cameras, podcasting kits, telescopes, metal detectors, hiking poles, coding robots, microscopes, pickleball sets and even home energy-efficiency kits. One can only imagine the crisis meeting when someone proposed lending something that didn't have a spine and a Dewey Decimal number. At this rate, the library might actually evolve to meet the needs of its community. Someone should check the original business case immediately.
The oyster restoration project has also been attempting to improve the river, despite the inconvenient possibility that ecological science might require adjustments along the way.
Council has yet to confirm whether these developments constitute progress or a failure to read the original brief.
THE PRESS RELEASE IS THE PLAN. THE PLAN IS THE LAW.
Under the emerging philosophy, a library should presumably continue lending books until someone can prove that an e-bike appeared in the original business case.
The Digital Hub should be judged by the financial expectations of 2017, even as technology transforms the businesses it was established to support.
And an environmental restoration project should be assessed without allowing the natural environment to interfere too much with the paperwork.
Why allow a project to evolve when you can simply hold it accountable for not remaining in the past?
THE FUTURE: SUBJECT TO ARCHIVAL APPROVAL
Noosa faces genuine decisions about how to invest in its community. Those decisions require evidence, transparent costs and a clear explanation of what ratepayers are being asked to fund.
They do not require every library, digital hub or oyster to spend eternity fulfilling the exact expectations of the day it was announced.
Council’s job is to govern the community we have, prepare for the community we’re becoming, and explain how public money serves both.
If the standard is simply whether everything still matches the original press release, perhaps Council could save itself the trouble of commissioning reviews.
It could just search the archives, declare the past correct, and invoice ratepayers for another year.