Message from Warringah Mayor

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ManlyArmy

Bencher
I would welcome the offer of the Sea Eagles doing the grass maintanence and paying 220k for the lease of the facilities but that offer hasn't been made in writing. It has appeared in the media but not in any formal negotiations. This offer is also quite the turn around from less than 12 months ago when sea eagles management agreed in writing to the licence fee subject to having a clause of exclusive naming rights in the contract. Joe Kelly knows my number but hasn't called or even emailed. Instead he threatened staff that he would start a media war if he didn't get his way. So they have lobbed the first volley on a phoney war via the media. My message is - " if your position has changed from that of last year when you were happy with the 375k going forward, then by all means put that in writing via a formal offer instead of wasting people's time and emotion and using them on your personal phoney war. And Dragging sea eagles living legend from his sick bed is a new low".

In regards to statements by Ken Arthurson, I will send him a note (and a get well card) to ensure he knows the facts and not the spin from management. All fans, especially club heroes like him, deserve to know the facts.

And you have to feel for the players... Every year a new management crisis to start the season.
The Sea Eagles, their fans and the community in general need to keep in mind that the State Government has advised that under the terms of the current merger process, a Council can not encumber a new proposed Council with substantial changes to existing assets or licences - i.e this years licence needs to be on the same terms as in previous years. The reason for that is simply that the new Council may have different priorities etc and therefore should only honour existing licences. To accept a lower lease fee would mean that a new council would be encumbered with additional liabilities. This proposed new Council will include Mosman ratepayers and Manly ratepayers and will be smaller than the existing Warringah Council. Members need to be weary of that.

In essence, it costs 600k real dollars per year to maintain Brookie. The Licence on offer is 375k for 12 NRL games and 20 additional uses - i.e more football games. Total ratepayer subsidy is over 200k annually.
The ground is closed to the public for around 5 days each NRL game for bump in/bump out so for close to two months of the year, they have exclusive access. And for the rest we are limited to who to hire it to re the ground must be in Nrl standard.

The sea eagles signed a five year licence in 2007 for 350k per year.
Council and the State then invested over $11 million to extend the Jane Try stand for additional seating and corporate boxes as well as a complete internal and external refurbishment including keeping the wooden seats as per the sea eagles request.

Given these improvements, in 2012, the Sea Eagles agreed to a new deal of 375k per year. This represents approx 2.2% of their reported 17 million dollar budget last year.
Council does not have nor is holding any promised money from the Federal Government past or present.
The Council and Sea Eagles agree that the ground should be in a State Trust if it is to be a bigger seating capacity ground. The state govt does not agree with this position - in fact their Stadia strategy ruled that out. A simple new stand to the east of about 4000 undercover seats will cost about $25 million.
As for the misleading claim by the Sea Eagles that other sporting groups are only charged $1000 this is simply not true - our fees and charges are easy to find and open to the public to view.
Finally, we are unaware what other Councils licence or lease fees are. We do know that all of them are struggling. Look at Leichardt. Look at Gosford. Stadiums are inherently expensive to maintain even to a minimum standard. And is the main reason the State govt has focused on The SCG/ SFS, Homebush and Parra stadium.

At the end of the day, we are proud to support our team. We are the only Council that does in NSW to my knowledge, prob in Aust. It is well known the management have wanted to take more games away from Brooky, but get blocked by the other board which has allowed them two only. Read my Mayor's message in Saturday's paper. They just want someone else to blame for taking more games away so they can earn more money. Keep in mind they made over 17 mill last season consistent with other seasons. But.. They sacked their coach, payout, CEO, payout, Senior staff staff, payouts and so it goes on. Is it Councils responsibility to pick up that tab? We already pay around 600k annually for game day expenses. Publicly available documents. That doesn't include depreciation or capital improvements.
Appreciate the time you have taken to write to me, and if you have any follow up questions, Or I haven't answered something specifically, by all means, let me know. I will be back from OS later this week. Am at a family wedding.

Michael Regan
Mayor of Warringah
(02) 9942 2422
 
Now for a retort. Let's see how this plays out.

Does anyone know how much other teams pay to use council owned grounds?
 
It will be interesting to see if Smoking Joe now puts in an offer. I doubt it Penn's will have some more spin in the rag with in a day or two. Michael Reagan could have even dwelled on that issue a little longer. Ie SMOKING JOE KELLY HAS NOT OFFERED TO LEASE BROOKVALE OVAL.
 
If all the figures stated are correct then is the asking price that unfair?
And why has the hire cost only become an issue since the Penns took over? Has the price dramatically increased in the last few years or has it been on a slow increase over the last decade?
I don't pay enough attention to keep track of all the spin from both sides but the fact is the Penns are business people. They want to make money. They might say the are in it for the love of the Sea Eagles but the reality is they want to make money. Bullying suppliers to cut costs (Coles and Woolies style) is probably the norm in their business method of operation. So no suprises they're adopting the same tactics here.

Bash the council and get the price reduced = Penns win
Council won't budge, blame council, move games away from Brookie and make more money
= Penns win.

No brainer
 
This really is so unprofessional and another example of spin and poor administration.

You would think that being the 70th anniversary of the club this would have been sorted out cause its a bad look if we get to round 1 and we are still haggling over this surely the time has come for all parties to get together and SORT this out!
 
Sounds like the Penns and Kelly have been caught out with their phoney reason why they will move the games away from Brookie

I don't trust the owners which is a sad thing to say
I told you......nope I promised I wouldn't say that ......so
 
I bet the truth lies somewhere in the middle of the two extremes of this argument. It's short sighted to read Regan's response and take it all as gospel; the guy is a politician after all and he does drive a Jaguar.
 
So while the rest of us use Facebook and Instagram to exercise our narcissistic muscles, the rich and famous use the media to do the same. It's fortunate the Penns married into a media family to be able to make themselves look so good.

Slide-nark
 
So while the rest of us use Facebook and Instagram to exercise our narcissistic muscles, the rich and famous use the media to do the same. It's fortunate the Penns married into a media family to be able to make themselves look so good.

Slide-nark

Love your work too Slidey
 
This really is so unprofessional and another example of spin and poor administration.

You would think that being the 70th anniversary of the club this would have been sorted out cause its a bad look if we get to round 1 and we are still haggling over this surely the time has come for all parties to get together and SORT this out!

I think it's there way of putting on a big 70th bash.The shiit fight to end them all. They must be so proud.
 

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