City officers are working frantically to prepare the agenda for this week's council meeting. The reason for this is clear, with two key councillors away when the decision is made to push forward with the watersports complex:

Cr Binnie voted against the original proposal and Cr Brazier expressed concern about costings following the community forum which she attended last year. If they were present the vote could go right down to the wire, given that Cr Crutchfield is caught between his personal wish for the complex to go ahead and the ALP's position that it should not, Cr Bill Aitken is backing the community on many issues and Cr Santalucia voted against the complex last year.

In the meantime, Mayor Jarvis was one of a select audience with Mr Alister Paterson and Premier Jeff Kennett who made the announcement that it would be funded, in what we all know to be part of pre-election hype. This is the highly charged political dynamic in which this city's decisions are being taken.

In the jockeying for personal and political capital, rational arguments have been discarded. There have been no environmental or social impact assessments, and ironically for a council which prides itself on sound economic management, a virtually non-existent cost-benefit analysis. They have secured no major events, and have made no provision for car parking, the assembly of fixed structures such as grand-stands, or any realistic estimates of ongoing maintenance costs or spectator numbers.

Any talk of flow-on effects to the rest of the Geelong economy are completely unsubstantiated. To reintroduce at least some semblance of democracy within this council, the vote on the complex should either wait until Crs Binnie and Brazier return to Geelong, or the council should teleconference this meeting.