Still no use for pound house

Some 32 months later Baw Baw Shire Council is still to decide what to do with a house included in its purchase of the former Utopia Pet Lodge at Longwarry North.

The brick house, previously the on-site residence of the pet lodge owners, has been vacant ever since council outlaid $1.2 million for the property in August 2016.

Repeated requests by The Gazette have failed to illicit any information from the shire about plans for the house.

The most recent response from the shire, last Wednesday, was that “nothing has changed since our last communications regarding this matter”.

That was on April 18 when the answer was “please be assured that once a decision has been made we’ll let you know”.

Indications from late last year were that options were expected to be put to council early this year.

Soon after buying the property including the pet lodge business council decided it would not need the house to accommodate staff for the business or the pound when it was eventually moved there from Warragul.

After losing money the pet lodge was closed by the council less than 12 months later. The pound was established there last year. The Gazette has also been unable to get details of the assessed value of the house as part of the fixed assets of the property.

Council has refused to release information contained in a business case and due diligence report prepared for it by “an independent entity”.

While still mayor last year Cr Joe Gauci said the reports could not be made publicly available because of a “disclaimer” attached to them by the independent entity.

Of the nine current councillors only four – mayor Mikaela Power, former mayor Joe Gauci, Tricia Jones and Peter Kostos – were members of council when the decision was made to buy the property at Longwarry North.

Since then there has also been a total turnover of members of the executive management team - the chief executive officer; directors of corporate and community services, planning and development, and community assets; chief information officer, and executive manager communications and economic development.