When ratepayers gave the mayor boxing gloves in 1890, they weren’t kidding. 140 years later, council’s still trying to stop the money leaking out, one glove at a time.
If you’ve heard whispers that Kiama Council is in financial strife and thought, “Surely this is new?” — allow me to introduce you to the long and time-honoured tradition of municipal money woes. Because, dear reader, we’ve been broke since before board shorts, streetlights, or even bridges were cool.
In 1882, Kiama Council approached Parliament to borrow money for, you guessed it, a tramway. At the time, it was seen as a visionary move. The blue metal trade was booming, basalt was being hauled from the hills to the harbour by horse and dray, and the dust and mud on Kiama’s streets were choking businesses and water tanks. A tramline was proposed to streamline transport from the quarries to the port and keep Kiama competitive in the shipping trade. It might have been brilliant, had it worked.
Instead, it went over budget, underused, and over the edge of financial logic. By 1890, the council was broke. Properly broke. Ratepayers were so fed up they literally handed the mayor a pair of boxing gloves at a council meeting. (Fact, not metaphor.)
By 1894, Kiama Council was saddled with a £4,000 debt to the bank, couldn’t afford basic street repairs, and had to sweep Terralong Street with brooms while dust blew into shops and ruined water tanks. The situation was so dire that they considered lighting the streets with acetylene gas instead of paying their overdue bill to the gas company.
Electricity? That was another slow burn. While towns up and down the coast were already flicking switches, Kiama was still dithering over tenders, tariffs, and the staggering cost of poles and wires. The council’s reluctance to commit funding meant Kiama lagged behind in the electrification stakes, and when lighting finally arrived, it lit up more resentment than roadways.
Water supply? That, too, was a long and thirsty road. For decades, residents relied on rooftop tanks, wells, and carted water. By the late 1800s, a proper water scheme was desperately needed. Eventually, the solution came in the form of Fountaindale Dam,
located at the confluence of Tangalla Gully and Fountaindale Creek, approximately 10 km west of Kiama. A concrete wall was built to hold back the water, and in 1909 the dam was completed as an on-stream storage facility. It officially became part of Kiama’s water supply system in 1909 at a cost of £7,073 (roughly $1.1 million today). Pipes were laid, tanks were constructed, and water finally flowed. It was a triumph, briefly.
Fast forward to today and the irony is hard to miss. Fountaindale Dam still sits there, perched on what is now my family’s farm. It no longer supplies water to Kiama, having been decommissioned in 1977, yet the dam’s massive wall remains council’s responsibility, a costly, aging relic of early infrastructure dreams that now brings nothing but maintenance bills and engineering headaches. It is not accessible to the public.
Public buildings? Repeatedly proposed, repeatedly defeated, sometimes by referenda with fewer than 20 votes. A grand new civic hall was once declared too ambitious. Central Park was dismissed as a “disgrace to the title,” filled with weeds, quarry rubble, and good intentions.
And the consequences of all this financial floundering?
They were significant.
In 1890, after years of frustration, Gerringong and Jamberoo both seceded, forming their own municipalities and taking with them not only their rates but also a good chunk of local identity and political momentum. The split was celebrated with banquets, and the division remained in place until the mid-1950s.
Even surf culture faced municipal delay. When locals pushed for public bathing and beach access, council’s response was to fine the first man caught swimming in view of the street. It took years, and another round of public outcry, before bathing laws were finally revised and surf clubs allowed to form.
So if you’re feeling nostalgic about balanced budgets and visionary spending, maybe don’t. The truth is, we’ve always operated somewhere between ambition and overdraft.
The real question isn’t, “How did we get into debt?”
It’s more like, “Do we ever learn?”
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