The decision that matters: council runs it
Item 5.4 on the agenda was the Planetarium Operating Plan and Business Case. Council first resolved to take the item in seriatim, meaning each part was voted on separately rather than as a block, which is usually a sign that at least one part was expected to be contentious. In the event none of them were: every part passed with all twelve councillors in favour and none against.
The substantive one is resolution 26/363, in full: That Council Endorse Council's operation of the Planetarium. Councils have choices here. A facility like this can be leased to an operator, run by a trust, or contracted out. Orange has decided to run it in house, which means the staffing, the programming and the commercial risk sit with the council and, through it, with ratepayers.
What it is proposed to cost
Resolution 26/364 put the following prices on public exhibition for a minimum of 28 days. These are proposed, not adopted, and exhibition is the point at which residents can say something about them.
| Session type | Ticket category | Price per session |
|---|---|---|
| School | Primary and high school group students | $10 per student |
| School | Teachers and supervisors | Free, maximum 2 per session, depending on group size |
| Public | Adult (over 18) | $20 per person |
| Public | Child (3 to 18 years) | $15 per person |
| Public | Children under 3 | Free, may sit on a carer's lap |
| Public | Concession | $17 per person |
| Public | Group bookings (10 or more) | $15 per person |
| Public | Family (2 adults, 2 children) | $55 per family |
A couple of things stand out from the table itself. The family ticket at $55 saves $15 against buying two adults and two children separately, so the discount is real but modest. The concession price of $17 sits closer to the adult fare than to the child fare. And the school rate of $10 a student, with supervising teachers free, is the number that will decide whether this becomes a standard excursion for schools across the Central West rather than an Orange facility that Orange children visit.
The names
Three naming resolutions followed. The Conservatorium building becomes the Orange Regional Conservatorium (26/365), its recital hall becomes the Mary Turner Recital Hall (26/366), and the planetarium becomes the Orange Regional Planetarium (26/367). The two Conservatorium names carried with eleven councillors in favour, the planetarium name with twelve.
The reason for the difference is recorded in the minutes and is worth noting because it is the system working properly. Cr Jeff Whitton declared a significant pecuniary interest in parts three and four of the item, as chair of OCTEC, which has made donations to the Conservatorium. He left the meeting at 8.21pm, took no part in the discussion or the vote, and returned at 8.28pm. That is what the Local Government Act requires and the minutes show it happening.
What we could not establish
The resolution requires the prices to be exhibited for a minimum of 28 days, but the minutes do not record the exhibition dates, and we could not find the planetarium exhibition listed on the council's engagement site when we checked. Twenty-eight days from the 7 July meeting would fall in early August, so if you want to comment on the prices, the council's own exhibition page is the place to check rather than relying on our arithmetic. We would rather tell you the date is unconfirmed than guess it.
Why this is worth a paragraph beyond Orange
Regional cities do not often build planetariums. The interesting part is not the dome, it is the decision to operate it in house alongside a conservatorium, which commits the council to running two specialist cultural venues with the staffing and programming that implies. On the prices as proposed, a family of four pays $55, which is in the range of a cinema visit, and a school group pays $10 a head. Whether those numbers cover the operating plan is the question the business case exists to answer, and it is the one to put to council when the exhibition closes.