As I have posted onto the Bring Back the Seaview page: I am waiting for a response to the latest email I sent to The Principal of St Patricks College ( Mr Chris Mayes is Dr Carrolls successor for 2015 - email address [email protected] ) and from Edmund Rice Education Melbourne. I was responding and commenting on the email Dr Carroll sent to me in response to my email in which I expressed community sentiment about the hotel closure and asked St Patricks to change their mind and return it to the market for re-sale. Dr Carroll did not comment about those issues. Instead his email concentrated on explaining in several different ways, the opinion that because St Patrick’s College did not own the Seaview Hotel on Sunday 30 November they were not responsible for the closure of the Hotel. He went on to explain that the owners of the Seaview Hotel made a decision to close the hotel and seek buyers for the building and land. At the time of the email (7 December), St Patrick’s College was in negotiations with the owners of the Seaview Hotel regarding the purchase of the building and the associated land. At the time of writing, St Patrick’s College did not own the Seaview Hotel and if St Patrick’s College does finalise negotiations and purchase the building and land, it does not intend to demolish or remove the building. My response to Dr Carrolls email (forwarded to Mr Mayes for his response) is below: I accept that at the time of the closure of the Seaview Hotel, St Patricks was not technically the owner - although because the college had entered into a contract to purchase the building, in my opinion your organisation was part of the reason that the hotel closed. Extrapolating that opinion, I believe that if St Patricks hadnt offered the seller the money they were wiling to accept, the course of events would arguably have been that the asking price would have had to be lowered until it was an attractive proposition to a buyer as an ongoing hotel business. From my perspective, that would be the usual process in the business world - that is if there wasnt a wealthy organisation across the road with expansion plans. So in my opinion your organisation did not somehow save the building, but instead sealed its fate. This is not just my opinion - but as you would see from the comments from the growing number of supporters of our campaign, this community (and beyond) also believes that St Patricks played a part in the closure of the Seaview Hotel. In any case, I believe that it is not helpful to lose sight of the issue by conjecture or by focussing on the opposing views of such technicalities. It appears to me that the central issue is the very strong public sentiment that St Patricks expansion in our suburb has been detrimental to its links with its history and is causing almost irreparable damage to our sense of community identity and, with it, your colleges reputation. You can see more examples of public sentiment in the comments that are steadily coming in on the on-line petition. I am not sure if St Patricks College was aware of the negative sentiment it attracted with its previous history of expansion on the northern side of Pier Avenue - expansion that caused the loss of many of the small businesses that were apparently coveted, purchased, closed, demolished and replaced with school buildings. In my opinion the community sentiment following those actions may have simmered underground to an extent. Perhaps in the past there was an element of apathy or perhaps it was a feeling of helplessness, with the result that the thought of a David & Goliath struggle against the might of your organisation was not something anyone appeared willing to take on at that time. This time, however, it is a different story and I sincerely believe that your organisation would be wise not to underestimate the depth of negative sentiment that I believe our community has attached to your colleges purchase of the Seaview Hotel. I believe that it important for you to understand that, in my opinion, it is due to the colleges past history of taking over the other Pier Avenue buildings that the technicalities and timeline that have been offered by St Patrick’s in explanation of how they have come to purchase the Seaview, have been vehemently rejected by the majority of this community. What appears to matter is the end result - that St Patricks College has purchased the Seaview Hotel with the result that the community has lost its iconic hotel after 133 years. It appears to me that it is not important to the community who made the first move and, I believe, using that reasoning as some sort of absolution is an affront to the community and is interpreted as a condescending dismissal of the very deep sentiment felt about the loss of their hotel. I think it is also important to understand that, I believe, this sentiment is not going to fade away over time - but continue to grow. I believe that if the college persists with its plans to incorporate the Seaview building into its expanding campus, I cannot imagine that this community is likely to EVER forgive and forget this. It appears to me that the community campaign to Bring Back the Seaview Hotel will continue to grow with more and more publicity and the possibility of more and more influential people becoming involved. I also believe that there will be escalating tension if the college persists with its plans, to the extent that I cannot envisage that the community WOULD EVER support a re-zoning application but would do all it could to block such a move. In fact, I think that if the issue was allowed to come to a head in the form of public reactions over re-zoning, the chances of the community forgetting or forgiving will be badly - if not irrevocably - damaged. I think it is preferable to resolve it long before that stage if St Patricks wish to retain any level of community goodwill and avoid increasing amounts of negative publicity. I thought it was important to let you know my thoughts on this because I imagine that good community relations are important to an organisation that wants to maintain a successful school business. I also believe that this episode will continue to be a real distraction from the good deeds for which I imagine St Patrick’s would prefer to be recognised and acknowledged. However, I sincerely believe that on current trends the St Patricks legacy in the Sandgate/Shorncliffe community will be lasting memories of what was destroyed not what was given back. In other words, in my opinion in this case even if St Patrick’s “win”, ultimately it would “lose”. I sincerely believe that there is still time to affect the outcome in this case by using the considerable resources, patience, goodwill and Christian spirit of your organisation to return the Seaview to the community by returning it to the market place until a new buyer can be found who will operate it as a community hotel. This situation can still have a very positive outcome for everyone involved and at this juncture the power is in the hands of your organisation - so I again implore you to do this for the sake of your colleges continued success in our suburb and for the sake of our history and our community. sincerely Bring Back the Seaview PLEASE NOTE Would you or your organisation please provide a response to the issues I have raised - specifically: 1. What is your organisation’s response to the community reaction to your purchase of the hotel? 2. What are your organisation’s current intentions with regard to the Seaview Hotel building? 3. If your organisation intends to persist with plans to turn the hotel into an administration building, when is site work planned to commence? 4. Will you consider returning the hotel to the market to find another buyer willing to operate it as a hotel? If not, why not? Please note that In the interest of public transparency about this issue, I reserve the right to include the contents of this letter - and your organisations reply - on Facebook or in the news media.
Posted on: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 22:13:18 +0000
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