INDIGO Shire mayor Jenny O'Connor was angry on Thursday morning.
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In fact, in her own words, she was "incandescent with rage".
The fury was fuelled by news $10 million in federal cash, from a program meant to benefit regional areas, went to North Sydney's council for a swimming pool upgrade.
Yes a pool that lies in the shadow of the Sydney Harbour Bridge scored a mass of money and to add insult to injury the council had not even applied for the windfall.
Detail of the funding was highlighted on ABC television's 7.30 with North Sydney mayor Jilly Gibson telling the program the pool was "definitely a regional facility".
Laughably her basis for that line was that people from all over NSW "use our pool".
On that logic the Westmead children's hospital and the Sydney Opera House are "regional facilities" too.
You can understand why Cr O'Connor felt particularly aggrieved when you contrast the grand North Sydney pool with the aquatic centres across Indigo Shire.
The five pools at Beechworth, Chiltern, Kiewa-Tangambalanga, Rutherglen and Yackandandah are all in desperate need of upgrading.
Former mayor Larry Goldsworthy painted a sad picture of the pools' woes when addressing a council meeting last March.
"Showers that regularly don't work, peeling paint work, rust, cracks in the concrete with raised sections, tiles falling off and a lining of the Beechworth pool that bubbles like a jumping castle," he said.
The lining problems at Beechworth means the pool leaks.
Given that scenario it is no wonder Cr O'Connor felt like she was being "insulted and treated with absolute disrespect" when she learned of North Sydney's grant.
Member for Indi Helen Haines has called the situation appalling, tying it to her call for a strong federal anti-corruption agency.
The whole episode just adds to cynicism about the federal government and pork-barrelling, following on from the sports rorts affair which is being further exposed through a Senate inquiry.
Our community, not just Cr O'Connor, should be angry.
