Mayor John Dal Broi with a Griffith Update

B: Tell us about what’s going on at the Regional Theatre?

M: We were fortunate on obtaining a city grant. We have upgraded the toilets downstairs and upstairs, we’ve created a new amphitheater and new landscaping. We need to keep our facilities up to modern standard people will back away, so we’re trying to keep up the facility so the people will love using it and we do get great use out of it so we’re all waiting for it to open, so it should be completed by the end of this month and hopefully we will be able to open up short after that.

B: What’s the timeframe for the completion to the whole of Yambil Street?

M: The construction contract is until the end of September, start of October and just looking at it the contract is going to be way ahead. Stage One of Yambil Street was a learning curve for the contractor and a learning curve for the Griffith City Council. I think what a lot of people don't realise is that while we are upgrading we are upgrading out water mains too and that takes time. We’re very pleased we have not had any major hiccups and as soon as that’s completed we will continue to move onto the next stage also. When Yambil Street is complete, it’ll be a picture and I think it’s great for business to have a beautiful new Street, beautiful new trees. We had a few complaints about where the trees were placed but now they’re all gone and people are saying it looks great. Tell us about the Yoogali Intersections That’s taken years of lobbing because its a main road and comes under the duristriction of the roads an maritime services we’ve had to lobby politicians, state and federal eventually we got it, its a $9 - $10 million dollar expenditure. The problem is that the contractors have to put a new bridge which is an RMS contractors job and a lot of people would prefer roundabouts but because of the road and service station there it will create problems. There’s going to be lights and i think in the long run it’ll be better and safer.

B: Lastly Jubilee Park, Westend Oval Redevelopments and the Aquatic Centre

J: The Aquatic Centre we have put a contract out now, Heinz Construction from Bathhurst, they were the successful tender. We are negotiating with the sports council now for the Westend Stadium to see how they want all the facilities there, like synthetic hockey, basketball, netball, so we want them to get together, we’re in the process now for applying for a $10million loan. The project itself, Westend Stadium is a $24million project $10million from the State Government, $4.5million from the Feds and $10million from Griffith City Council. Now because we are in a strong financial position the government allows us to borrow through the treasury so we can get funding at a very very cheap rate. We would be silly to not take that on to provide infrastructure for the community. Once the outdoor pool is built you will see that complex will be fantastic, with an indoor heater pool, hydrotherapy, an outdoor pool, its going to have covers and structures over it. Our main objective is to get that outdoor pool going.