Submission to Council

Dear Councillors Dimopoulos, McGill and Kottek,

I really appreciate the time that each of you commits to the benefit of our community and whilst you may have felt unappreciated and at times attacked over the Oakleigh pool future, may I assure you, that it is from passion and commitment to our children and their requirements that the community have banded together to ensure that you, our elected representatives, understand how strongly and unwaivingly we believe that this pool is not negotiable.

In considering the future of the Oakleigh Pool site, I would like to submit that you move to retain the following:

The site can support the continuation of the bike path without major loss of amenity and this might involve the use of some of the land currently used for both the pool and the golf course.

The change rooms need to be upgraded and particularly the drainage from the mens changerooms to prevent flooding. These may not necessarily need to be demolished—let’s not throw any babies out with the bath-water.

Other resourceful, open-minded, community-supporting councils such as Booroondara have recently finished refurbishing and heating a pool similar in age, style and disrepair to Oakleigh Pool. They did this for $3 million.

There are answers that meet both the community demands and council budget restrictions. We ask that you find these answers and in fact that you consult with us because we are the stakeholders – this is about our children. You have demonstrated in your decision to expand the potential use of this site to include maintaining a swimming pool, that you understand what your constituents want and I applauded that. Please follow through on this.

Please let me know if there is anything that I can do to assist you in this task.

Damian Davine

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