Cr Terry Fleischfresser
May 17, 2018
St John’s Lutheran School will get a licence to use a portion of Adermann Park in Kingaroy for an hour a day after the South Burnett Regional Council agreed to the school’s request at its monthly meeting on Wednesday.
The school will be allowed exclusive use of an upper portion of the park to conduct supervised running and soccer for two 30-minute periods every school day during terms, subject to a small range of conditions that include keeping the park’s grounds neat and tidy.
Before the issue was discussed, Mayor Keith Campbell declared he had a perceived conflict of interest in the matter because his wife sat on one of the school’s committees.
The Mayor then left the Council chambers, and in his absence the meeting was run by Deputy Mayor Kathy Duff.
Council officers told the meeting the Council had informed the community about the proposal through a public notification process, which involved erecting billboards on the park boundaries.
The sign boards displayed a map of the area under consideration, along with details of the proposal.
The Council also sent written notifications to all adjoining property owners outlining the proposal and the process for providing comments and feedback to Council about it.
Cr Terry Fleischfresser said the school’s application to have exclusive use of a portion of the park for an hour a day on school days was all about “a child’s right to play”.
“I can’t see why anyone in this room would vote against this,” Cr Fleischfresser said.
“Children should have a right to play, and that’s what this is all about.”
Cr Fleischfresser told the meeting the school would have to adhere to several conditions to ensure the park’s facilities could continue to be enjoyed by other local residents who used it, and do so at no cost to Council.
It would also be required to hold appropriate public liability insurance.
He stressed the school was being given a licence, not a lease, and the matter could be reviewed in the future to determine if the arrangement was working.
Councillors agreed, and a motion to give the school a licence until the end of the year with an option to renew in 2019 – subject to a review – was passed unanimously.
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This is disgraceful.
The South Burnett council, elected to represent the community, are allowing a private religious school to have exclusive access to a public resource.
I have lived near Adermann Park my entire life. I am now 22 years old and throughout my childhood, my family used this park almost daily.
You think this is about a child’s right to play? What about the children in the community, the ones that can’t afford a private education, who now have a 40% smaller park to play in than I did?
The council and St John’s school have already blatantly ignored the wishes of the Adermann family who donated the land to be a green space for the community.
Why is our council facilitating the expansion of a private enterprise over providing services to their community?
Claire, why would the children of the area you are referring to not be in school when the park is proposed to be used by St John’s school? If you read the article you’ll see there are time restrictions which are during school hours.
Haters will always be Haters, that’s just how they are.
I’m pleased common sense prevailed here, of course kids/school can use parks. There’s proposals to rationalize ‘parks’ in the region due to lack of use. Greater use of parks and open spaces should be encouraged.
When certain individuals’ selfish indulgence prevent these types of proposals going ahead, there is a clear imbalance of power to the minority.
Take the recent case in Brisbane when a few residents complained of kids playing handball in a Kelvin Grove park, so the council removed the concrete slab!
I’m pleased the SBRC approved the licence application. Who knows, we could have the next David Beckham soccer player coming through the ranks here!
I’ve just had a look at page 55 of the Council’s draft Parks plan, and it recommends “rationalising” Adermann Park and Carew Park. Has anyone asked the Adermann family what they think of their gift to the people of Kingaroy being rationalised?
I’d call St John’s the heroes… they’ve just saved Adermann Park off the list!