While writing a story about Wollongong City Council's covert plans to punt community sport from the Ted Tobin Hall in favour of the Illawarra Hawks, I thought, 'What would Ted Tobin think?'

As a journalist in Wollongong in the 80s and early 90s, I got to know Ted Tobin. He was a larger-than-life mover and shaker. Without overstating it, he was a local legend. A champion of the people as an alderman and civic leader. A lookout above his beloved City (South) Beach was named after him. He was a champion of community and elite sport in this city and this region. Ted led the charge for the creation of the Illawarra Academy of Sport and the Beaton Park Leisure Centre where a hall was named in his honour.

I play pickleball socially in the Ted Tobin Hall on most Wednesday nights. Many hundreds use 'Ted's Hall' every week for gym glasses, badminton and table tennis. It's a wonderful facility, paid for by the people to be used by the people. There's no other hall like it in our city and it reflects Ted's vision for Beaton Park: a grassroots community sporting facility.

It's hard to understand what possessed Council staff to think it was a bright idea – without telling the community sporting groups who use Ted Tobin Hall or the staff who manage Beaton Park Leisure Centre – to boot them out and give the Hawks pretty much exclusive use of the facility.

Fellow pickleballer Caroline Hudson was stunned by the move, saying "to hand over community facilities, paid for by ratepayers, to a commercial enterprise, seems to go against everything that the Council stands for." At least that's what we would hope our Council stands for.

What happened to Council's 'transparency' in this botched, embarrassing saga? Do we really have people running our Council that think it's clever to secretly block-book a community facility to stop regular users accessing it, so it clears the decks for the Hawks to take over (a quick disclaimer, I love the Hawks and hope they continue their stellar start to the season)?

Eric Bradley from the Illawarra Badminton Association sums it up perfectly. "It's all been handled very poorly. It was very stealthily done. It wasn't until Council started copping flak that they changed their mind." On Friday, The Illawarra Flame gave Council the opportunity to nip the Ted Tobin Hall story in the bud by ruling out the possibility of a Hawks' hall takeover. The statement issued by Council doesn't exactly close the door to moving the Hawks in and everyone else out in the future.

A few weeks ago we elected a new Council to run our city. I hope each and every one of our elected councillors is as equally appalled as the sporting community by this incident and the way our Council has behaved. Let's hope when councillors hold their next behind-closed-doors meeting the hard questions will be asked. Is this a Council content to continue to make decisions that impact the community in secret, without consulting and without being open and honest?

We will probably never know who initiated the takeover bid for the Ted Tobin Hall and how high in Council discussions were held, strategies developed and decisions made. It's a very sad start for our new Council, especially given most of them campaigned so passionately for honesty, integrity and transparency.

And in answer to the question 'What would Ted think?', for those of us who knew the great man, Ted Tobin, we all know exactly what he would think. A facility named in his honour should not be treated in such a dishonourable way.

About the writer

Jeremy Lasek has many decades of experience in media, marketing, events and PR. His career began in the Illawarra with the Lake Times, ABC Radio and WIN-TV. For eight years Jeremy was news director for WIN in Canberra and was national news director before joining the National Capital Authority as head of media and events. Jeremy was executive director of ACT Government Communications, Events, Arts, Heritage and Protocol for many years, was Chief of Staff to the ACT Chief Minister and had responsibility for the Centenary of Canberra celebrations in 2013. Before returning to Wollongong, Jeremy was CEO of the National Australia Day Council (including the Australian of the Year Awards) and head of communications for the Australian Federal Police. Jeremy is a member of the Friends of Woolyungah Indigenous Centre at UOW and a regular lllawarra Flame contributor.