PHANTOM PROBE
MAYOR Tom Tate is being accused of using a “phantom” development to help convince councillors to sell the Bruce Bishop car park.
The CCC is investigating allegations the Mayor made false and misleading comments during a crucial debate last May as councillors considered whether to off-load the $60 million car park.
Cr Tate talked up a proposal at 3 Beach Road where he said the operator of the would-be boutique hotel claimed clients would arrive by public transport and that $1.3m had to be paid in lieu of 45 car parking spaces.
“That that (sic) boutique hotel is actually a backpackers, and in their submission they are saying that people, their guests, come to the property via using transport to the transit centre and or the light rail,” he said at the May meeting.
However, emails between council CEO Dale Dickson and Save Surfers Paradise three months after the vote to sell Bruce Bishop show the project at Beach Rd had lapsed seven years earlier.
Cr Tate has called the allegations “fantasy and fallacy” and yesterday said he was not concerned about the CCC probe.
BESIEGED Mayor Tom Tate says he is not concerned about a Crime and Corruption Commission investigation into his council’s proposed sale of the Bruce Bishop car park.
In his first in-person interview since news of the investigation broke, Cr Tate was adamant the controversial plan would stay on track, despite growing community opposition and concerns of potential legal ramifications.
A Gold Coast Bulletin poll of 762 individual respondents revealed 86 per cent wanted the sale of the car park halted.
In Southport launching the Gold Coast Suns Shanghai delegation yesterday, Cr Tate said he did not agree with those who wanted the sale stopped.
“When you do a poll, without full information, the poll is uninformed so I agree with my councillors’ decision because they are the informed people,” he said.
The CCC confirmed last week it would investigate allegations involving Mayor Tate, CEO Dale Dickson and the sale of Bruce Bishop car park.
Allegations lodged by Save Surfers Paradise include concerns about Cr Tate handling Mr Dickson’s contract renewal as the latter was negotiating the sale of council land at the Surfers Paradise Bowls Club to Cr Tate’s development group. The land is opposite the car park.
The Mayor said he was “fine” despite the council being drawn into its third CCC probe in two years.
“By the end of it, they’ll say, the question will be, what’s it all about, question mark.
“Let me put it this way, if I put a complaint on something and did the whole thing and get a letter back going ‘yeah we’ll look into it’, and you grab all of that and give it to the media, that doesn’t make it truthful.”
Among those opposing the sale is Surfers Paradise RSL president Ross Eastgate, who said the demise of the car park could be the “death knell” of his club and the famous beachside suburb.
“It’s very stressful in a very difficult economic climate to have the prospect of the parking being removed. It’s not just us. It’s the wider economic impact on Surfers Paradise as an Australian cultural and tourist icon and this could be its death knell.”
Mr Eastgate said he believed the RSL club was a “part owner” of the car park after paying a six-figure levy to help build it in the late 1980s.
“We also pay an ongoing fee that enables us to offer our members free parking for up to three hours. We are a partowner of the facility.”
Community groups last week warned ratepayers could be liable for legal costs if a sale of the assets has to be withdrawn once the process has gone too far.
Cr Tate denied ratepayers could be liable to compensate a prospective buyer, saying the real risk would be in calling the whole thing off now. “There’s no, there would be repercussions — if you stalled without a reasonable reason, absolutely there would be.”