Email Outbound (recipients in comments field): All Councillors\All Wards\All Parties. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Date: 1 January 2015 at 16:00 Subject: HAPPY NEW YEAR! All the best for 2015 Councillor To: Good Afternoon Councillor and Happy New Year! The next few weeks are a busy time and some of you will have the opportunity to decide on a response to the application by Beacon Arts Theatre for emergency bailout funds totalling £1.8Million. I am contacting you to make you individually and collectively aware of a large campaign across the whole of Inverclyde aiming to ensure NO COUNCIL FUNDS are allocated, ring fenced or secured by third party funding agents by the Council for or on behalf of The Beacon Arts Theatre. You may cast your mind back to a few weeks before Christmas when we had Inverclyde Foodbank collecting food parcels and accepting donations so that families had food and did not go hungry over Christmas period. At the same time Council officials were block-booking School & Community halls across Inverclyde to stand in front of packed meetings and declare difficult choices have to be made with anticipated budget cuts of between “£7m-15.3m” in the near future. So I ask you, Councillor, take a moment to consider... with roads falling apart (despite auditors appraisals!), with accounts in limbo (despite auditors appraisals!), with flooding concerns on a weekly basis (despite record investment), with cuts suggested in areas of social care for the elderly, youth groups, education, housing, with potentially “100 Council staff job cuts” threatened and so forth... do you still think its wise to go against public opinion and plough £1.8MILLION pounds of PUBLIC MONEY into a profit-driven Enterprise which has fumbled from one disaster to another in the space of 24months? Whichever way it is spun, if you are “anticipating” massive budget cuts, this cannot make any sound economic, business or moral sense to be cutting essential funding for local Services and Charities whilst secretively preparing to bailout a mismanaged profit-driven Theatre. In the next week or two, the issue will be raised for a second time at a closed/secret Council meeting, before being aired in public, in preparation for a full Council vote. Dear Councillor, I plead that you forward on any information concerning the date and time of these Public meetings, disclosure of facts, appraisals and business plans that may emerge. I can widely circulate these to the Campaign supporters in advance. This will allow supporters to review in detail (to the same degree as they patiently did with your Budget Review Simulators, Proposals and Choices) then make arrangements for attending the public hearing of the vote. Given that Councillors are hearing from three members of the Beacon Arts Theatre, I wonder whether Councillors would also be in a position to hear objections or public feedback at the same meeting to ensure a balanced view is taken. We are campaigning against this bailout with the motto ProtectServicesNotProfits. I invite you to look at the websites, petitions and listen to the campaign being discussed online (links enclosed). Our campaign featured on Inverclyde’s premier Radio station : inverclyderadio.scot/Politics/nobeaconfunding.html Our campaign is based at : https://facebook/saynotobeaconfunding Our Petition is based at : https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/say-no-to-council-funding-the-beacon-arts-theatre Many articles from sources such as Inverclyde Now, Greenock Telegraph and social media reporting heavily on the situation, therefore a lot of information is in the public domain already and people perhaps acutely aware of the situation. The Beacon’s predicament is born from mismanagement, rising construction costs and avoidable delays. The Beacon board members have been aware of the shortfall in funding since the 23rd December 2013, well over 12 months ago. We believe its time the Theatre stood on its own two feet, started accepting responsibility for the mess it finds itself in and leave Inverclyde Council and its citizens to balance their books as expected cuts bite. For a £10Million Theatre with 60 members of staff (eqiv. 39 full time posts – A.Robertson (Chairman) - Inverclyde Radio 30/12/14) and at just over 2 years old, to be begging for a handout of £1.8Million whilst concerns rage over non-payment of staff, boardroom turmoil, outstanding legal cases with contractors and let us not forget... another six figure final bill to complete original Planning Agreement.... it’s a disgraceful situation, absolutely disgraceful, but one of it’s own making not the Councils and not the wider Community. The answer must simply be a NO. Anything else and the Budget Review Consultation will be seen as discredited and a shambles...not quite the “Most Extensive Budget Consultation in Inverclyde Councils history” that our Leader of the Council proclaimed on the 5th December. Is it simply one rule for one and another for another? How do you suppose this news of bailouts is going down in the clubhouses of Council-funded clubs that may face extinction due to forthcoming cuts but have otherwise balanced their books? How about the Youth Organisations enriching generations of kids in Inverclyde whilst balancing the books then being told funding will be tight in the coming years. Please also note that any suggestion of funding being diverted via Riverside Inverclyde to the Beacon is an insult to the intelligence of our Supporters since we all know full well that the under-performing RI group is nothing more than a mouthpiece when things are going well, and an arms-length quango when things are not. Inverclyde Council is not a lender of last resort You know its not right, you know its a difficult decision, you know deep down that when families are being fed night-to-night by a charity collecting on the steps of Clyde Square, we cannot be using stretched Council budgets to chuck £1.8Million of desperately needed cash into a theatre. I look forward to hearing back from you. Please note that we run a completely transparent campaign and acknowledgements/replies may be shared with the group to avoid duplication. We have much work to do in the next few weeks, as does the Beacon. It can and it must survive but using private sector financing, donations or review ticket prices (£5 for a Panto ticket?!?) rather than throwing the ball back to Councillors who seem to be prepared to earmark which public services well be hit to ensure a minority gets to see Aladdin every Christmas. Best wishes for 2015 Councillor, Hope to hear back from you. Kindest Regards, Say No to Beacon Bailout Campaign Team
Posted on: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 16:02:41 +0000
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