A final word on the Mullum and Byron pool tenders.
The five councillors who voted for Belgravia obviously care deeply about our pools. I’ve loved the Byron pool since I did SwimSafe there when I was a kid in primary school. While pools are invaluable to the community, they have a quantifiable value to Byron Council. And it was value that drove the five councillors’ decision to award the tenders to Belgravia.
The cost difference (which legally must remain confidential) was significant — seriously significant. So much so that I submit no responsible person with any business experience could have made a different decision.
We obviously deeply care about local jobs. For the Letters Editor to suggest otherwise is absurd and offensive. While management will change, the vast majority of jobs will remain local. We must govern on facts not feelings. To have done otherwise would have been gravely irresponsible.
Cr Jack Dods, Myocum
• The Letters Editor didn’t suggest councillors don’t ‘deeply care’. He said that Council’s resolution cost local jobs because the local managers for both pools lost out to large corporate Belgravia. But since you brought it up, councillors ‘deeply caring’ about local jobs is debatable given the Mullum carpark and roadworks fiasco, as an example.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
