Extraordinary Meeting outcomes - May 2024

Published on 27 May 2024

At today’s Extraordinary Council Meeting, Kiama Council reached a significant milestone in the divestment of its aged care business Blue Haven Bonaira.

Council voted to endorse and agree to the broad parameters of the sale and delegated for the CEO to prepare final contracts for the Blue Haven Bonaira site and associated services (excluding Community Transport) and to bring back to the July Ordinary Meeting for execution.

It is anticipated, having agreed to the terms of the sale, that a joint media statement between Council and the preferred tenderer will be released later this week.

Mayor of Kiama Neil Reilly thanked the Councillors, CEO and staff for getting to this point.

“We have today achieved a significant milestone in our two-year journey to divest Blue Haven Bonaira. I want to assure everyone that we do not take this decision lightly. Each step of the process has been worked through with meticulous detail, with many pages of reports, hours of briefings and debate among the Councillors and other stakeholders.”

“I look forward to our next announcement where we will share the news about who Council selected to transfer ownership of Blue Haven Bonaira to. We know the community, our staff and residents in the facility are keen to know and we are just days away from that shared statement. I thank you for your patience, it has been a long and complex road but we are very nearly there!” Cr Reilly said.

PIO VARIATION RECEIVED  

Also tabled at the Extraordinary Meeting was the varied Performance Improvement Order, issued by the Honourable Ron Hoenig MP, Minister for Local Government, to Kiama Council.

The Performance Improvement Order (PIO) outlines a range of financial and governance issues that our Council must address, and which we have been working on for some time now, the Blue Haven Bonaira divestment being one of them, alongside Council’s financial management, and our financial accounting and management systems.

“We thank Minister Hoenig for the varied PIO and will continue to prioritise our work on the actions required to be undertaken by Kiama Municipal Council over the following 3 financial years to improve its operating performance”, said Mayor Reilly.

Council has committed to report on the status of the implementation of all actions outlined in the PIO via bi-monthly reports to the Minister and Office of Local Government.

These reports will also go to Council and be available to the public via the business papers.

Blue Haven divestment: background

Council has been working through a divestment process for its aged care business, Blue Haven Bonaira since May 2022.

In early 2022 since this current Council was sworn in and made aware of significant going concern and longer-term sustainability issues around our finances, Kiama’s Councillors and staff have been working diligently to address these matters. The divestment of Blue Haven Bonaira has formed a large part of this work.

In February 2023, Council voted unanimously to proceed with the Blue Haven Bonaira divestment (subject to a reclassification of the land). The land was reclassified in the middle of last year and we went out to tender in October.

The tender was a multi-step process that, in February this year, resulted in Council declining all tenders and opting to negotiate with the preferred tenderer.

Today's resolution means Council proceeds a step further towards the divestment.

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