blog

WorkBoot's Grave

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +1200

The WorkBoot has taken his trusty shovel and dug his own grave -

29 August 2012

The Mayor

Kaipara District Council

Hokianga Rd

Dargaville

Dear Mayor Tiller

Over the past two years, I have in my role as Councillor, taken many steps to seek action on the Council’s financial, legal and democracy performance.

My views and actions are well known to you and my fellow Councillors and are a matter of public record on the website I set up at:

http://www.theworkbootcouncillor.net.nz/

Withholding of information was a core part of the culture of the previous executive and your tenure as Mayor.

All Councillors rely on the timely and transparent disclosure of information.

The ineffectiveness of your Councillors, if any of them deserve to be excused for not acting with independence and courage, is because you have continuously delayed or blocked disclosure.

I can give many examples of my own, and of note were the delays and blocking that occurred in releasing the Ecocare funding documents to me.

In the last and final hours of the embarrassing mess that has been your Council, there appears to be no relief from the unending denials, spin, bluster and hiding of information.

I refer, of course, to the recent media reports of a payout to the previous chief executive in the region of $240,000.

The Alleged Payout To Jack McKerchar

It is public record that I was not present at the meeting that apparently authorised this payout.

I have never seen the documents authorising the payout and the documents do not form part of the official records of Council held by me.

I have requested the minutes and related deed of settlement, which as a member of the Council, I am entitled to see.

I am being denied access to this information.

As far as I am concerned if a payout has been made, it has not been properly brought before Council and accordingly was on the face of it, illegally made by you and whoever else agreed to make the payment.

Frankly I believe the monies should be repaid to Council by you and those Councillors that authorised the payment.

There is no justification for the payout.

Jack McKerchar, on his own public statements, resigned because of ill-health.

I accept that his performance was constantly criticised by you out of his hearing but at the end he either resigned as had been said, for the reason said ill-health, or you and Jack McKerchar have lied to the public.

Given that I have been denied access to the documents to form an opinion, it appears in our dying hours that my only alternative is to lay a complaint with the Serious Fraud Office.

I intend to do that.

The Proposed 'adoption' of the Annual Report

I note that, despite my reasons given to you in writing, it is proposed that the 2010/ 2011 Annual Report be adopted by your Council at the 29 August meeting on your recommendation.

Of particular concern is point 5 of your recommendation which states inter alia

“That Kaipara District Council directs (my emphasis) the Chief Executive to sign the Statement of Compliance which is required to be included in the Annual Report”.

The Chief Executive, as Council’s principal officer, is not prepared to vouch for the accuracy of the information and the financial viability of the Council.

It beggars belief that your Council is contemplating directing him to do so in such circumstances. I understand that this 'direction' will be made on the basis that he, the CE, must then sign the statement because he is being ordered to do so by his employer.

In what other world would this not cause an outcry and deep condemnation?

This is the wrong thing to do at every level.

Despite my prior objections, this wholly unlawful, unethical and despicable recommendation appears set to proceed.

So I must set out, so it is absolutely clear, why this recommendation should never have been even contemplated, let alone be the basis for action.

You are asking the CE to lie - Despite the long history of spin in your tenure as Mayor, you cannot make black into white simply by saying so. The CE and everyone else know that the Statement of Compliance requirements cannot be fulfilled, or at best cannot be made, without severe and compromising qualifications. This is a statutory function, not some chat with a radio station.

For the Council to direct the CE, to in effect sign a lie, is to conspire to cause a criminal misrepresentation.

No public company Board could direct its CE in such terms. It follows that for a Council to do so is absurd and I believe unlawful within the context of the employment relationship.

This is not a formality - To treat the representation as a mere formality is the very reason why you have never understood your financial and legal duties as Mayor.

This attempt to direct the CE to lie, is lead by you and while each Councillor who votes for the lie to be perpetrated on our ratepayers is also responsible for their decision, as with so many other decisions, ultimately and solely, this decision is primarily your responsibility.

No doubt you will claim you were misled by someone.

If you intend to rely on that 'excuse' as you have done with other matters, I urge you to reflect on the plain fact that if you are so constantly misled clearly you are not capable of discharging your duties as Mayor.

In normal circumstances I would suggest that the prudent course is for you to resign, but I know that call would be rejected out of hand and wasted effort on my part.

You are misleading the ratepayers - Your Council, and you as Mayor, with your Deputy Mayor, hold office with higher duties to the public than a Board of a public company. Public companies have shareholders. They invest voluntarily.

Council has statutory powers which compel ratepayers. It is well established that those that hold public office with such powers have the highest of duties.

To use this fiction of the CE being directed to lie, to enable adoption of the Annual Report, just from common sense, must taint the Annual Report at both the legal and ethical levels. Before you quickly comfort yourself that this is nonsense and is within Council's power, you might reflect on how wrong your statements have been on the legality of the rates.

I could go on with further reasons but it is too shameful to do so because those reasons only further illustrate the moral and legal bankruptcy that is your Mayoralty and the decisions of those that have mindlessly followed your lead.

Adoption of the LTP

The next matter is the adoption of the Long Term Plan 2012/ 2022.

The legal advice provided to the Council in relation to the illegalities of this process was provided again in a public excluded session. The same old text is listed in the Minutes to justify exclusion.

Again, saying black is white does not work. The requirements for public exclusion cannot be met.

Simply, the public was excluded so you and your Council could hide and receive advice which would not stand the test of public examination.

In adopting the LTP, Council is confirming that it believes that the plan is financially prudent.

That the plan is premised on, amongst other things:

not having to refund $17 million of rates that the Council has acknowledged are invalid, and that Council’s legal advice indicates would likely need to be refunded if challenged in court

rates as struck being paid. The difficulty with this is the status of the LTP itself is almost certainly a further illegality, and the implied assumption is that the rates strike will end. The more probable outcome is that the LTP will simply be seen for what it is, a further arrogant, illegal exercise of power. I cannot see why the rates strike should not intensify under such circumstances.

I do not believe for one moment that the adoption of the LTP will survive any challenge in the Courts.

It seems that adopting the LTP is simply a preliminary political step to enable the Commissioners to claim that the adopted plan is the legitimate expression of the wishes of the ratepayers. No doubt from there it will be argued it should be validated by retro-active legislation.

This is, I believe, the true nature of the reason for the push to adopt.

No doubt as Mayor you will continue to spin, as you have already done on radio, as the LTP being this Council's LTP. It may be the LTP that some members here see as acceptable.

However:

First, the LTP is tainted by illegality. An adopting resolution is simply an expression of contempt for the law and the people of the District.

Secondly, the hearing process was flawed, unfair and biased. The LTP is, I am certain not an expression of the ratepayers view of the future for the District, for it condemns them to financial misery and saddles them with your grandiose District Plan.

That District Plan has and will handicap the District and destroy the one basis that might offer relief in the future, namely vibrant economic development.

Simply, this District needs money to pay the bills. The only future offered by the LTP and District Plan is the Council ever increasing taxes by way of rates, on this already poor district.

The tragic aspect of this is that if you and the other Councillors simply obeyed the law and honoured the democratic trust placed in you by the ratepayers, you would refuse to adopt the Annual Report and the LTP.

The Commissioners would then have a clean slate and no doubt the required retro-active legislation could ensure that the Commissioners could govern without an LTP until they could work out a plan and properly consult the District.

In any Council there should always be differences of view.

This has been anathema to you and you have no understanding, in my view, of your duties as a leader of a democratically based institution.

I have stayed on, mostly as a minority of one, because this is my district too and the people that I see, that I represent, have time and again asked me to hang in.

You have destroyed this Council – not others who have 'let you down'.

You could have taken the steps I implored you to consider last year. Those were documented on my website at the time and will remain as a testament to your unwillingness to listen to any opinion other than your own.

Your vision continues in the LTP. It is simply more of the past, of muddling, unaffordable grandeur.

My vision is for:

a District that can grow economically by removing the obstacles to development by withdrawing the district plan and going back to a plan that people, rather than high priced armies of consultants, can understand.

A Council that has done the hard work to zero-based budget all the District expenditure with only essential core activities being supported

A Council and District that invest in partnerships to market the District as a place to work and visit. I do not refer to the junket partnerships such as your trip to Japan. The comic absurdity of your statements at the time, while closing our iSite office, are illustrated by the total failure of your efforts as the Districts personal tourism salesperson.

A Council that spends in the District, rather than seeking favour from big city law firms, Banks and other consultants that have and continue to pillage the ratepayers hard earned money.
A District where it does not take a retired lawyer to cause this Council to get high priced advice to tell it that it is acting again and again unlawfully.

A Council that does not use its advertising budget to silence the local press.

A Council that has committed Councillors that actually care about balancing the books rather than thieving by putting its hands in the ratepayer’s pockets.

A Council that has the courage, when it has ruined the District through its negligence, to do the right thing and truly tries to learn from its mistakes, rather than trying to institutionalise those mistakes through a fairytale of an LTP.

A Council where it is unacceptable behaviour for a Councillor to blame its own ratepayers for failure in projects such as Ecocare. Ecocare for the record was your Council’s project. Ecocare was not wanted by most in Mangawhai. Now having been disgracefully mismanaged to the point that this Council cannot even account for the monies spent, it is shameful that this Council's failure is being used to create a them against us campaign in the District.

You are the Mayor, as you have been so quick to emphasise, when exercising the powers and formalities of the office.

Those powers, formality, pay, the standing, the grandeur come at a price.

That is not your oft referred to personal price but the price of service to the people of the District.

The price is to run a Council that truly exercises its powers and responsibilities to create the simple, but required outcomes, of a well run, solvent organisation.

If even a few of those submissions I made last year had been acted on, instead of you playing the politics of exclusion and personality attacks, our District would not be the bankrupt sorry mess that it is.

Your legacy is personal financial misery for many, and I, for one, find it unbearable to see your arrogance for one moment more.

So with no hope of you acknowledging the illegalities and the misery that you personally are responsible for, I have now reached a point that even if our constituents think I should stay, it is time for me to go.

I will not be a party to such unlawful, shameful and disgraceful actions in these dying days of our Council.

I resign effective immediately.

Yours sincerely

Jonathan Larsen

Kaipara - A case study?

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +1200

I have had a very interesting email from John Dickie.

John has been a tireless contributor through his own efforts to the campaign for openness and honesty.

As usual his thoughts brought a perspective that I had not considered - namely we, in making history, need to record the lessons learnt.

Now is the time for us to document what has been done and record that so that there is an authoritative work setting the how and who made the change at KDC possible.

I would appreciate any suggestions on this. For example should we ask the History or Politics Departments at Auckland University whether this is a masters or doctoral study? If so who would be prepared to share their resources such as emails, documents etc. Or do we need something sooner, and if so who would research and write and how do we see that document used?

Again, thanks go to John for his reminder of the huge work done by so many and I obviously do not have the complete picture, and recording that would no doubt be very valuable for understanding what we need of Councils and Councillors as we head into the next election - whenever that might be.

A new beginning for the people of Kaipara

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +1200

The dire and sorry state of the Kaipara District Council is nothing new. Shortly after being elected my suspicions that the KDC was not solvent were confirmed. You need look no further than this article in the Kaipara Lifestyler “Councillor fears a default” here.

The alarm bells were ringing – and I started to blow the whistle.

Of course the claims of the WorkBoot were vigorously denied by the Mayor, elected Council and Council executive in the characteristic blank-faced spin for example as covered by the Kaipara Lifestyler in “No Council Debt Concern” here.

The central government agencies were very slow to respond, as if they wanted to avoid at all costs, opening the can of worms that is local government dysfunction nation-wide, and of which Kaipara District Council was emerging as the mother of all problem children. My whistle blowing intensified and I was joined by an increasing number of concerned ratepayers.

Finally, on Monday, in a public excluded meeting (as is KDC style), the Review Team presented to the Council its draft recommendations to the Minister of Local Government. I cannot disclose the content of that report. It will however be publicly released by the Minister after he receives it on 17 August. In the meantime, if you were to imagine every possible complicated financial and legal shambles, and wastage of ratepayer money that a local authority could possibly create, then you’d be pretty much on the mark.

The red dot laser sight of the central government assault rifle was diplomatically and skilfully lowered onto the foreheads of the assembled councillors, and they were politely invited to take the easy way out.

And so, it was with some quiet satisfaction that I watched as, cornered and defeated, the game was up. The “request” was made for the Minister to appoint commissioners. and with that, the assembled outlaws reluctantly raised their wild west revolvers to their temples and blew their own brains out.

Commissioners will be appointed and will replace elected Council in early to mid September.

This is the culmination of what has been a long and sustained campaign by an unofficial network of selfless, dedicated people with the best interests of the district at heart. I personally owe a debt of gratitude to the many ratepayers who have kept my part of the campaign moving, through contributing to the WorkBoot blogs and forums, writing to the succession of Ministers and the watchdogs, and writing letters to the media. Your emails and phone calls of support and encouragement have made it all worthwhile.

Many have played their part but a particular mention of Clive ‘Legal Eagle” Boonham of Kaipara Concerns what can I say, incredible!; Bill Guest for his ceaseless energy and enthusiasm, who first exposed the rot, never gave up and has now been fully vindicated; Bruce Rogan (MRRA) and Ron Manderson (KCRA) and team for mobilising the masses and piling the pressure on, a brilliant job; John McDonald of The Kaipara Konnection, a long and hard hitting campaign of getting the word out to many every week; Alan Mortensen and staff of the Kaipara Lifestyler and Annette Lambly of The Advocate for balanced and consistent reporting; and for the masterful behind the scenes support, encouragement and inspiration (you know who you are) without which the WorkBoot would not have even got out of the starting blocks.

There is still a way to go with the uncertainty around the appointment of commissioners, the OAG inquiry, and the LTP. But with the entrenched inept and incompetent soon to be officially removed, there is some chance of getting to the truth of the problems and finding solutions. We now have a chance to start looking towards rebuilding the district.

The WorkBoot website has proven to be a useful communication and networking tool. I will keep it live in the meantime with the prospect of using it in a similar but more positive way during Kaipara’s recovery phase.

This not so covert “operative behind enemy lines” role was always going to be a Kamikaze mission for the WorkBoot – a minor personal sacrifice for the benefit of all ratepayers. I will no longer be around the Council table on your behalf, but I remain committed to working together to bring our once proud district back to its feet. A focus on creating employment, attracting new enterprise to the area, encouraging growth and expanding our rating base through an enabling regulatory environment, and supporting primary industry would be a good start.

A new culture can now start to emerge – one of openness and trust, cooperation, respectful relating and benefit for all.

I remain as always, your obedient servant, the WorkBoot.

You can post your comments and reflections in the "A new beginning for the people of Kaipara" forum here.

With sins of omission is it time for a Commission?

Sun, 12 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +1200

With the resignation of Councillor Andrew Wade, the question could properly be asked of the WorkBoot – why not also resign?

Andrew resigned citing his frustration. I know that frustration, and it is a timely reminder of the undemocratic censorship that continues with this Council.

When a Councillor is shut down and prevented from speaking his mind during open session, it is clear that the politics of entitlement have not changed. What is sickening is the sense of victory that comes from our Mayor that accompanies his shutting down yet another Councillor just trying to do his job.

You might think I have been quiet lately. I have. With the Review Team and the OAG enquiry in train I anticipated Mayor Tiller’s response which was the reason to wait and see.

In fact that is just exactly what he did in his mealy-mouthed, backhand insult on Andrew's very principled stand.

You might have thought Mayor Tiller would be worried at this time, when the District is reeling from his mismanagement, when central government has had to intervene, that loosing a good guy such as Andrew Wade as a Councillor would not be a time for the Mayor to hold himself out as an example. And yet that is what he did.

Mayor Tiller is reported as saying:

“As a first-term councillor I felt the same frustration. It was not until I became familiar with local government that I found traction. This council is made up of nine elected members who all have the same right to exercise their views and persuade members to support their ideas. Sometimes you are successful and sometimes you aren’t. This is the nature of democracy.”

Incredible. Andrew Wade resigns and Mayor Tiller has the gall to hold himself and his practice of 'democracy' out as an answer.

The Mayor may have the other Councillors in his camp but he has no answers.

The Mayor may have seen off yet another good Councillor who has the temerity to question the insanity that is our debt ridden, do nothing Council.

The Mayor may have closed down all debate, strangled the use of Notices of Motion, continued secret proceedings, but he is the paragon of democratic practice.

Posts of this blog have described the Council as a circus. Little wonder.

So, the Workboot? I know that your expectation is that I will hang in to try to keep shedding some light on the goings on of the KDC other than its lamentable spin.

In that vein you need to know, fellow ratepayers, that tomorrow is a big day for the Council.

The chairman of the Review Team Mr Greg Gent will report to the Council what he intends to convey to the Minister. With so much at stake one would have thought this would be a matter of strong public interest, and that the discussion would be open to the public, as is supposed to be the default position with our supposed transparent democratic system. Unfortunately the old ways continue and the item is recommended to be conducted with the public excluded for the following reasons –

“Witholding of the information is necessary to protect the privacy of natural persons, including that of deceased natural persons.”

The privacy of which persons requires protection? Who is deceased? The review team? The elected members? The former or current executive? The minister?

“Protect information which is subject to an obligation of confidence or which any person has been or could be compelled to provide under the authority of any enactment, where the making available of the information—

(i) would be likely to prejudice the supply of similar information, or information from the same source, and it is in the public interest that such information should continue to be supplied; or
(ii) would be likely otherwise to damage the public interest;”

If we’re talking about engaging with the public and building trust what information supply could possibly be compromised? After all according to the official line it was the Council’s idea to request the Review Team – (cue in Tui ad).

“To enable any local authority holding the information to carry on, without prejudice or disadvantage, negotiations (including commercial and industrial negotiations).”

What would the Council be negotiating? That the Review team change their report? And if so why can the public not be privy to these negotiations?

The insanity appears to have no bounds.

The covert personality attacks sadly continue. Councillor McEwing continues to see the need in personal communications to insult ratepayers who he has been ‘too nice’ to. The WorkBoot has been subject to a new campaign with Councillor McEwing slagging off Workboot saying that I am , according to what he ‘sees and hears’, not ‘a good man’.

Hmm is this the word of a man of God? Does not the Bible talk of he who cast stones? And if I am such a not good man (presumably therefore a bad man) why not raise this before Council. Surely a bad man as a Councillor should not be allowed to continue?

The cheap tawdry circus that is the Council continues.

Unfortunately it seems as long as anyone has the temerity to stand up for the democratic rights of the ratepayers, so too will the personality attacks continue.

With $80 million and rising in debt, the highest debt per capita in the country, $17 million of unlawful rates collected, an unaffordable rates proposal about to be foisted on the long suffering ratepayers, and a significant rates strike crippling Council’s cashflows, is enough enough?

The Elected Council has proven it does not have the skills or will to solve its own self-created problems.

In the words of Albert Einstein - “We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

In the best interests of the ratepayers, the time has now come for the Minister to step up, dismiss the Council, and appoint a Commissioner. I have written to the Minister here requesting that this occur.

In the meantime the WorkBoot will stay on and continue the job he was elected to do - to represent your interests as ratepayers and to continue to push for open, lawful and transparent democracy.

You can post your comments in the Council performance forum here.

Carnival Season

Sat, 30 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +1200

It was truly carnival season at the Kaipara District Circus on Wednesday.

An understandably concerned group of ratepayers responded to an anonymous tip-off that their rating structures might be debated during the 10am session, by filling the gallery of the Circus Chambers to capacity – possibly the first full house in the Circus’s history.

Following an extensive period of clarification and debate around EcoCare rating structures, further modelling aimed at finding an acceptable and affordable approach will be undertaken and brought back to Council for further debate.

The late item recommending the striking of an interim rate at the same quantum as the 2011 -12 rate was discussed at length. Questions of legality had been raised by Clive “Legal Eagle” Boonham earlier in the morning here. If last year’s rates were invalid then legally they were not “rates”, and therefore striking new rates at the same level as last years non-rates could therefore very likely be yet another unlawful act.

As there was still a good week before a rate needed to be struck, WorkBoot suggested waiting for the Review Team’s input. However Mr Ruru had earlier stated when questioned that only he was privy to the Review Team terms of reference, but that the MLG and DIA wanted them kept confidential (without any stated grounds for doing so). The Mayor chipped in that the Review Team would not be involved with the rates (even though he was apparently not privy to the terms of reference himself).

At the end of the exercise the motion was carried with WorkBoot (that stick-in-the-mud fancier of legal compliance), Wade and Linton voting against it (what’s wrong with these guys – don’t they realise compliance with the law is an optional extra under the Bigtop?) So, there we have it, another layer of uncertainty and dubious legality.

WorkBoot’s governance austerity measures were not well received by the Circus.

The proposal that elected members forego their salaries for the rest of the term here failed miserably 1 – 8.

The proposal to bring our own lunch to meetings and save $17,000 per annum here was also not the popular choice of the day.

The proposal to not employ a canteen supervisor here as advertised was also lost.

It seems the culture of continuing to spend is a bit of a hard habit to break.

There was however a win for transparency on the day, and the WorkBoot proposal to have all public business papers and reports issued to Council published on the Circus website here was passed.

And Council will now recover the historical costs of sewage removal from Sunset West at Baylys as proposed here. Interestingly Circus had originally invoiced for and recovered these costs but then ceased doing so. One would have thought that at least one of the residents of the subdivision would have alerted Circus to the fact that there had been no invoices for a couple of years. The total amount to be recovered is $18,500 – better than nothing.

Thanks to Councillor Wade for seconding these motions so that they could be debated.

To add to the drama, during the proceedings, an understandably very distressed ratepayer burst into chambers wanting to know why a road was being built across his wife’s grave.

By the end of the meeting the Review Team terms of reference had been publicly released by the Minister here. Given that it was apparently the elected Council that had requested the Review Team, it does seem somewhat irregular that the terms of reference were given to the chief executive confidentially, and kept from the elected Council until after they were made public – hmmm something doesn’t quite add up here.

One other significant issue outed through questioning. Not just EcoCare but all wastewater rates across the district, apparently since forever, are now also acknowledged as invalid to the tune of a further $7.8 million. Add this to the $9.5 million already found to ‘lack statutory authority’ for EcoCare and forestry. Apparently this $17 odd million will show as a contingent liability in the annual report – if one ever comes out.

Many thanks to all the ratepayers who made the effort to come along and experience democracy in action in the Kaipara. For first timers it would be interesting to hear your observations of the day in the Long Term Plan forum here.

Late Item

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +1200

A late item is to be submitted to be included on the agenda for tomorrow's Council meeting. It relates to the setting of an interim rate. You can read the item here.

The meeting starts at 10am tomorrow (Wednesday) in the Council chambers, Dargaville.

You can post your comments in the Long Term Plan forum here.

Austerity from the top down

Fri, 15 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +1200

The events of earlier this week have to some extent been overtaken by the announcement of the review team yesterday here.

To recap, Council spent the first three days of the week delberating on the submissions on the Long Term Plan aka. rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. At the start of the first day Councillor Wade addressed the meeting about his concerns with the process and moved a motion (humbly seconded by the WorkBoot) to delay making final decisions on the LTP until the Review Team was appointed as reported in the Kaipara Lifestyler here. Many thanks to Andrew for breaking away from the mob and making a stand for fairness of process and common sense.

WorkBoot capitalised on the mood and moved that Mr Mark Farnsworth (former long standing NRC chair who was present in the gallery and had already addressed the meeting) be engaged to facilitate and assist with the LTP process and related issues, and with a bit of manoevring this was also passed. Mark, as expected, ably assisted in bringing strategy and direction to the usual haphazard scrap in the schoolyard sandpit. At the end of the exercise there was still considerable resistance from some members of Council to face up to what Mark dubbed 'the Debt Conundrum'. No amount of clever rearranging makes the huge numbers go away.

If media reports are correct, the terms of reference for the review team include the setting of rates (see the NZ Herald here ), and this meshes perfectly with Councillor Wade's motion.

The Council has once again directed the executive to find cuts and efficiencies in the operational budgets. I have always got the impression that there was a reluctance to cut expenditure if there was any possibility of rating for revenue. There also seems to be a reluctance to attempt to renegotiate existing contracts. Certainly WorkBoot's suggestion that staff be asked to take a 10 -20% voluntary haircut from the $4 million wages budget went down with the executive staff like a cup of cold sick.

And to be fair austerity should start at the top. If staff and ratepayers are being asked to pitch in, then elected Council should be prepared to lead the way. To that end I have submitted notices of motion for the 27 June meeting to the following effect -

That elected members forego their salaries for the rest of the term (saving approx. $250,000) , see here

That Council recovers all outstanding costs of emptying sewage from Sunset West, Baylys, (at least $13,500) see here

That Council cease providing food for Council meetings and elected members and staff bring their own lunch (saving $23,000) see here

That Council not employ a Canteen Manager (existing staff can have a roster to clean up after meetings) (saving at least $7000) see here

That Council make business papers and reports available on Councils website (some of WorkBoot's unresolved business from the bad old days of the former regime) see here

The Mayor (perhaps read 'the former CE/ puppet master') has in the past undemocratically and unlawfully blocked the majority of my submitted business from the agenda. It will be interesting to observe the approach taken by the new regime.

Let me have your thoughts in the Long Term Plan forum here.

In conclusion, Mr Ruru has said in the Kaipara Lifestyler see here that "We will continue to find skeletons in the closet over the next few years as we try to put things back together.”

Has the executive already found yet more skeletons in the closet? Have they slammed the door shut again out of fright (wink wink, nod nod), and will the further horrors be revealed on or about 27 June? The plot thickens...

More on the Review Team

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 00:00:01 +1200

The Council press release is here

The Q and A sheet is here

Post your comments here

Review team appointed

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +1200

The Review team has been appointed - see here

Post you comments here

A Parallel Universe

Sun, 10 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +1200

Last week WorkBoot spent four days at the LTP hearings. The 'deliberations' are being held in Dargaville tomorrow.

Having witnessed the genuine horror expressed by ratepayers at being presented with a quite possibly unlawful and largely untenable proposal, I was surprised to receive the staff recommendations on submissions here.

The report seems to present a very different message to what I had gathered from the submission and hearings process. This is so much so that I am wondering if there was another series of hearings being held at the same time somewhere else in a parallel universe. There also seem to have been many who didn't know the hearings were on, or where they were, or who got their notifications by post after the hearings had occurred.

It is also of serious concern that despite the thorough and genuine efforts of submitters to prepare for and appear at the hearings, including travelling significant distance to attend a week day hearing, and in some cases engaging consultants and barristers, it seems their presentations were not considered by staff in making the recommendations. This is evidenced in the recommendations being emailed out to Councillors at 420PM on Friday, shortly after the hearing at Mangawhai had just concluded. Furthermore elected Council are expected to analyse the 232 page report following four straight days of hearings, along with six large volumes of submissions that didn't ask to be heard, prior to attending the deliberations meeting on Monday morning. The whole fiasco is completely unrealistic, smacks of predetermination, and is a total breach of natural justice.

You will not find this staff report on the Council website. Workboot has been trying to get the Council's business papers published online for twelve months, but this was blocked by the former executive and Mayor see here.

Many of you have been involved in the LTP submissions and hearings process. I would be interested in your feedback. Do you think the staff report fairly represents the submissions in a balanced and considered manner?

Let me have your thoughts in the LTP forum here.

Council admits defeat

Thu, 31 May 2012 00:00:00 +1200

As most readers will already be aware, on Wednesday the Council resolved to ask Central Government to appoint a “Review Team”, to help to solve the Council’s numerous self-created problems.

What this means is that Council was forced to admit that it is completely incompetent (as had already become readily evident to the ratepayers), cannot solve its own massive financial and legal problems, and needs someone else to tell it what to think and what to do.

The item was added to the agenda as a last minute late item, referred to only verbally as “Review Team Proposal”, slipped into public excluded, and not circulated until the public had been booted out – as such I cannot tell you what happened during that part of the meeting. This was probably the most secretive underhand conduct I have ever seen from the leadership of the Council, reminiscent the bad old days of the previous executive. If there were small parts of the discussion that actually needed to be confidential, then the public could have been excluded from those particular parts, not the entire debate. After all the public talk about operating Council more openly, this was a very dark day for transparent democracy in Kaipara, and a sad and sorry indictment on the leadership of the Council.

Following the meeting, the accompanying report was made public – you can read it here.

The Minister’s press release is here.

The Minister’s Q and A is here.

The Council’s spin is here.

Such is the leadership of the Council, the Mayor and Deputy Mayor had kept the matter completely secret from WorkBoot right up until the item was circulated at the meeting. Fortunately due to the dedicated and well connected network of people who actually have an interest in the success of the district and concern for the ratepayers, I was able to be kept apprised of developments from ‘outside’ Council.

So as it happened I already knew that on Sunday the Mayor, Deputy Mayor and Chief Executive were summoned to Auckland by the Minister and told to ask for assistance, because assistance could not be forced on the Council by the Minister.

Despite the spin you might have read, there was no option available to continue without assistance – if Council refused assistance it would simply be sacked and replaced with Commissioners.

A panel of three experienced and competent professionals will soon be appointed to tell the Council what to think and do. Presumably if Council does not follow that advice it will get the boot. Hopefully this will mean that decision making will be de-politicised at a local level to some extent. If the new “advisors” (read decision makers) make fair and balanced decisions for the overall benefit of the whole district (rather than pandering to a perceived re-electing majority), then we may actually find fair, equitable, lawful and affordable ways to move towards getting out of this mess. In any event, any change to the governance and leadership of the district must be an improvement.

This is a clever solution for central government. It can be seen to not be interfering with local democracy, put in a team of informal Commissioners, and if all turns to custard, as a last resort still hold the elected Council to account and give it the sack.

All of this of course raises the obvious question – If the Review Team will tell the Council what to do, and the Council has to do as it’s told to avoid getting sacked, what is the purpose of even having the Council, and given there will be ratepayer funded costs associated with Review team, why should the long suffering ratepayers have to continue to also pay the Mayor and Councillors? ... but more on that later.

In the meantime the farcical LTP process continues to grind along. With the review team likely to be formally appointed after LTP hearings have concluded, their true influence on the workings of the district will before long be able to be assessed - by the time the rates are struck at the end of June. Council has resolved to hear submissions potentially in three committees of three members as another late agenda item here. As a matter of law one cannot deliberate or make decisions on submissions that one did not hear, and would have to rely on the recommendations of the other committees. This of course has the potential to make the whole process appear even more predetermined, and if committees are utilised in this manner, may open up a whole new legal can of worms - so watch this space.

The efforts of many of you in expressing your deep concerns to central government have finally resulted in at least some action - we are by no means out of the woods but change is afoot. Many thanks to all who have doggedly persisted in the push for the observance of the principles of legal compliance and democracy through writing letters, newsletters and blogs, and contributing to the WorkBoot website forums and other media. Remember that every time you post in the WorkBoot forums, your comments go straight to all the related key central government members and officials - a great way to keep government informed of ratepayer opinion as the LTP and Review Team processes unfold.

You can post your comments in the Council performance forum here, in the LTP forum here, or create your own new forum topic under any of the main forum headings here.

Transparency and why your rates are so high

Fri, 18 May 2012 00:00:00 +1200

Had an interesting Council meeting in Dargaville on Wednesday.

After all the talk of operating Council transparently at the ratepayer meetings over the past week – what do you know, another public excluded meeting – subject matter: receving and notifying the decisions on the Landscape Variation to the Proposed District Plan.

The Mayor was quick to announce that the item be debated in secret, readily gained a mover and seconder from the assembled rubber stampers, and put the motion. As usual that trouble maker WorkBoot had to interject “Excuse me Mr Mayor, I presume you meant to call for discussion”.

Following a conversation with the lawyers, the Chief Executive Mr Ruru had overcome his initial reservations about excluding the public from this matter, and Venessa Anich of KDC/BECA-EDS, Planning Manager Mark Vincent and Commissioner Les Simmons extolled the virtues of secrecy. WorkBoot hit back on the virtues of transparency and accountability to the ratepayers. After a lengthy debate Mr Ruru may have been swayed by the WorkBoot’s arguments because he left the chambers to phone Brookfields lawyers, returning to say that the item could be debated in pubic – so a win for transparency on the day.

However, because the meeting was advertised as secret, no one from the public or press were able to attend – let’s not have this happen again. I say let’s put a stake in the ground now – no more secret meetings and workshops unless absolutely necessary.

Next up the Landscape Chapter. This colossal waste of money as a result of Council unlawfully notifying the PDP with no landscape chapter (with the explicit wording ‘This chapter is intentionally blank’), and then attempting to defend the indefensible through the courts, resulting in being ordered to go through a whole public notification process for this chapter on its own.

It was interesting to learn that the decision to notify without a landscape chapter was made against Council’s legal advice.

It was concerning that staff were initially unable to advise what the projected budgets were for the continuation of this process. Once the budget were ascertained they were then unable to detail how the overall budget figures were comprised. I have asked for a copy of that legal advice and the budget breakdowns here.

Needless to say for a project originally put to the ratepayers as about $400,000, Council has now spent in the vicinity of $5 million so far with more to come. The budget for next year (part of what your massive rates increase is for) is $512,000. To put the significance of that expenditure into context - $120,000 is 1% of rates so there is 4% on your rates from that alone (and 4% is all you should expect to pay in increased rates in total)

The projected spend over the ten year cycle (see budget here) from 2004 to 2014 is $5.98 million – at $120,000 per 1% of rates that’s 50% or 5% of rates every year for the past ten years. What’s worse the $1 million from this year’s budget is being borrowed (see here) – as if we don’t have enough debt already.

Don’t forget all this just for a book, albeit possibly the most expensive book ever written! It's yours, you're still paying for it (although you probably didn't know) - but if you want a hard copy, sorry you'll have to fork out a whopping $450!

And what does the book essentially say? Pay consultants lots of money every time you want to do something on your private property, and if you’re lucky you might get permission – but no guarantees. There might be some merit in investing in a plan that enabled economic growth and increased our rating base - but this document is so restrictive and subjective as to create the level of uncertainty and cost to ensure inactivity and the resultant economic stagnation. As ratepayers you are paying $6 million to have your property rights eroded.

Anyway back to the meeting. WorkBoot expressed his concerns about compliance with the law. When did Council go back and tell the ratepayers, as required by the Local Government Act (LGA) 2002 (i.e. the Law), when it significantly changed the scope of the project from a review ($400k) to a total rewrite ($5 million and rising)?

It seems that (surprise, surprise) Council perhaps didn’t ‘consider community views’ in making this change with the resultant massive escalation in costs. The LGA (i.e. the Law) also says that if the Auditor General reports on a loss, the loss is recoverable as a debt due from each member of the Council. Well what do you know - suggesting personal financial liability for Councillors, and tabling a statement here to that effect, certainly slowed down the spending of the long suffering ratepayers’ monies, and with that the meeting was adjourned pending legal advice.

If ratepayers have access to Council meetings and business papers, they can then check that their rates monies are being spent in a fair, equitable and lawful manner - more on this soon. They can also assess the performance of their elected representatives and decide whether or not they want them to represent them again.

If Councillors realise that they may be held personally financially liable for losses incurred by Council as a result of poor or unlawful decision making, greater care may well be taken when spending your money - funny that.

Ultimately Council must stop borrowing and start making deep cuts into its expenditure. In my opinion this includes reviewing and where at all possible negoitiating cuts to all existing contracts and stopping all unnecessary spending. I will continue to push for such action on your behalf.

Let me have your feedback in the forums here or on theworkbootcouncillor@gmail.com

Power to the People

Sun, 13 May 2012 00:00:00 +1200

The Long Term Plan consultation meeting at Mangawhai attracted possibly the biggest crowd ever seen at a local political meeting in Kaipara.

The estimated group of some 2500 disgruntled and concerned ratepayers marched en masse from The Hub to the Recreation Centre.

The LTP proposal was not well received by the ratepayers (as expected). MRRA chairman Bruce Rogan made a strong address to the meeting, and Clive 'Legal Eagle' Boonham of Kaipara Concerns website fame presented an excellent summary of the Council's known illegal actions to date in relation to Ecocare.

There were multiple calls for the Council to resign. Council resignation was also raised at the Kaiwaka meeting the previous day with the suggestion that if the Councillors were any good then they wouldn't have any problem being re-elected.

There were also strong calls for ratepayers to not pay their rates, to force Council into a cashflow crisis, and make central government intervene. Central government has previously claimed that local problems should be dealt with locally. The sentiment of the ratepayers at the meeting was - why should the people who caused the problems in the first place be trusted to fix the problems?

There is a good deal of merit in this argument. As Einstein once said "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

Many thanks to all the ratepayers for such a great turnout to voice their genuine alarm. It seems the next six weeks may be pivotal - the viability of Mangawhai and the future direction of the district rest in the balance. Maybe the time has come for the people of Kaipara to take the power back.

The Kaipara Citizens and Ratepayers Association website is going strong here. There is more KDC discussion on The Kaipara Konnection here.

Let me have your feedback in the forums here or at theworkbootcouncillor@gmail.com.

MRRA Chair Bruce Rogan leads the march

WorkBoot joins the march in support of the ratepayers

CEO Steve Ruru presents to the massive crowd in the Recreation Centre

Clive 'Legal Eagle' Boonham (centre) asks the difficult questions

WorkBoot speaks to the meeting

The Rates Debate Escalates

Thu, 10 May 2012 00:00:00 +1200

The problems with Re-Captcha on the WorkBoot forums are now fixed. You may have received a handful of retrospective forum post notifications yesterday as a result of this fix.

You can now get involved in the debate in the Long Term Plan forum here.

The Council consultaton meetings are due to be held at Maungaturoto and Kaiwaka on Friday, and at Mangawhai on Saturday - see the timetable of meetings here. The throwing of eggs and tomatoes is encouraged - but please buy local.

Meanwhile don't miss the excellent updates and analysis on Kaipara Concerns here and Kaipara Konnection here.

The Rates Debate Ignites

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 +1200

There are many highly experienced and talented businesspeople and professionals with interests in Kaipara. They often offer their advice or assistance to the Council in the best interests of the district and its communities - they genuinely want to help make Kaipara a great (and affordable) place to live and work, and have a vested interest in doing so.

What has never ceased to amaze me is Council's consistent refusal to engage with these people and benefit from their experience and expertise.

With the draft Long Term Plan's 31% average rates increase notified yesterday, public debate is starting to heat up. The interview with the Mayor on Close Up last night (here) has kicked off the discussion on the Dargaville Facebook page (here).

Comment in this morning from a concerned ratepayer certainly provides suggestions of other alternatives -

"On TV last night Mayor Tiller said that he was not going to stand for Mayor again, that 12 years was long enough in local government.

Hopefully this will allow a new leader to emerge that will not have past baggage.

I have neither the time nor the expertise to follow my thoughts, but I do read about Councils defaulting (in USA anyway).

A new Mayor who was responsive to ratepayers must first make deep cuts to expenditure, not a cent on nice to have (new road sealing, tons of RMA and other staff and head office overhead , massive consultants fees pushing a particular barrow that KDC staff prefer, for example) and a rigorous audit of essential expenditure.

Privatising some assets should not be off the table....sell ECOCARE...properly run it is a great infrastructure investment with a certain cash flow...so it’s value becomes a return calculation.

What other infrastructure assets are available for sale....don’t know. Swimming pool ? Spare land ?

Next, I would negotiate a haircut with the banks and those who have lent to Council. Greece can do it...presumably so can KDC. Greece had it’s borrowing secured by the ability to tax, KDC by the ability to rate....somebody must be able to find a way.

The debt has to be contained, and at a sustainable level.

I would offer 50c in the dollar, extended term and fixed low interest.....or default (Possible? Don’t know)

A rates rise of the magnitude floated in the LTP is not an option.

The plan must be to have rates rises no bigger than inflation, and be debt free in say 40 years. The amortisation plan for the reduced “haircut” debt must be affordable and guaranteed.

Councils first priority must be to comply with the law in the cheapest possible manner, second priority debt reduction.

Finally, I am staggered by council staff attitude, where they dismiss out of hand an alternate point of view, and only under the weight of mediation see some sense in another (expert) view point.

The recent District Plan proposals are a case in point.

David"

The next month of submissions and hearings on the LTP will be a test. Will the Council pay lip service to consultation and carry on through a predetermined process, or will it finally start listening to the ratepayers and accept their help and advice?

Let me have your feedback on theworkbootcouncillor@gmail.com and in the forum here

The Mother of all Rates Hikes

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +1200

Kaipara District Council voted today to endorse and adopt a draft Long Term Plan (LTP) for 2012 – 2022 with an average rates increase for 2012 – 2013 of 31%. The LTP will be publicly notified for consultation on Monday 30 April followed by submissions closing on 30 May, and public hearings. The Council press release is here.

Whilst it is necessary to notify a plan in order to set rates, WorkBoot found himself unable to endorse the proposal in part due to concerns about unaffordability for ratepayers connected to Mangawhai Wastewater Scheme, particulary older ratepayers on limited fixed incomes, and inequities, some of which are described below. With dairy payout estimates of $5.30, some rural ratepayers may also end up struggling with what is proposed.

The LTP is the ten year budget that sets out the activity Council intends to undertake and how the rates will be levied from the ratepayer to fund this activity. The LTP proposes steep rates increases for many, with the most significant figure being a further $19 million of revenue to be extracted from the 1300 or so properties connected to the Mangawhai Wastewater Scheme (EcoCare). For many at Mangawhai who thought they had already paid through the nose for EcoCare this is likely to go down like a lead balloon. I suspect many would consider that the responsibility for this mess should lie with the former decision makers and implementers of this flawed scheme. The LTP is premised on Council not refunding any of the $9.5 million of invalid rates identified in the Salter Report.

There is also a change for many of the rates from charges per rating unit to charges per SUIP (separately used or inhabited parts of a rating unit). This means properties with more than one dwelling (e.g. farms) with different families living in them will pay multiples of these rates.

The operating costs of EcoCare are proposed to be partly spread across the district with 15% ($37 per SUIP) in the uniform annual general charge and 25% ($208 per SUIP) for properties within the Mangawhai Harbour Restoration Area catchment (which runs as far west as Baldrock Road). Thus SUIPs that are not connected to the scheme but fall within this catchment will pay over six times what the rest of the district pays in the general rate. Given that this catchment already pays $75 in the MHRS targeted rate those properties are then contributing over eight times the general rate amount.

Dargaville township fares well and in exchange for covering $61 of former targeted rates in its general rates saves $145 from its own targeted rates being transferred into the general rate.

The general rate structure has been changed with 30% of roading costs remaining in the general rate and the remainder paid by means of a uniform charge per SUIP and a targeted rate with a differential depending on property type. This is likely to have significant impacts on dairy and particularly forestry properties.

An LTP summary document is to come out in the Kaipara Lifestyler newspaper. If you would like a copy of the full LTP document or help to figure out what your new rates will be phone KDC Customer Services on 0800 727 059 - you are encouraged to to come up to speed with how your specific property is affected and to make a submission.

Clive “Legal Eagle” Boonham has weighed in on the legalities of the LTP in his Kaipara Concerns website here.

Let me have your feedback on theworkbootcouncillor@gmail.com and in the forum here

In memory of Owen McShane - a true Kaipara Gem

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +1300

It was with sadness that I learned of the sudden death of Owen McShane on Tuesday. Owen was a friend, supporter and mentor to me for many years and fostered my early interest in resource management law and economics. He was an internationally acknowledged authority on development economics, was sought after as a speaker at international conferences, and engaged by central government and other Council’s around New Zealand. In Kaipara District Council of course, as is the established practice with any locals of particular talent, his expertise and willingness to genuinely help were largely ignored.

Owen often went in to bat for the underdog on matters of principle and common sense. He was a staunch proponent of keeping it local and not farming all the work out to external multinationals – you can read his article on this here. Owen was a critic of the flawed logic, gross expenditure excesses and unlawfulness of the Proposed District Plan process.

Owen was a real asset to the Kaipara community and will be greatly missed.

Over the last couple of weeks I have been busy trying to wrestle some level of reasonableness into the Long Term Plan (ten year budgets) debate over rate increases of unprecedented proportions. See the Advocate article here and how Kaipara's topped the national charts for indebtedness here.

Meanwhile “Legal Eagle” as usual in his commentary on Kaipara Concerns has hit the nail on the head again here.

To quote from that blog –

“ The proposed district plan is bleeding bucket loads of money. It is a major financial haemorrhage for Council, and therefore ratepayers, It is never going to see the light of day (because of almost certain amalgamation) and is simply pouring vast amounts of monies down the gullets of consultants and lawyers.”

I have attempted for some time to extract from the Council what has been spent on the Proposed District Plan (PDP) and what the projected ongoing costs are considered to be.

These attempts by lodging notices of motion here and here were unlawfully censored by the Mayor. I have attempted to have this readdressed since the “retirement” of the “muppet master”, thus far to no avail.

Now as the result of an official information request, and thanks to new and more transparent CE Steve Ruru, some figures are available here.

A few points as I understand the history–

The original quote for the review was $385,000.

The rejected overbidders quote was $400,000 to $450,000 to take the process right through to notification.

Once the initial contract was given to BECA, the Council was convinced to significantly increase the scope of the work from a review to a complete rewrite – but this didn’t then go back out to be retendered, BECA just got the job.

With over $5 million spent to date (much of this borrowed – yet to get conclusive figures on this), that’s an almost 1300% budget blow out – easy money if you can get it!

Who gets the money? – BECA and Brookfields

Who provides Council with all its advice? – BECA and Brookfields

What happens when I point out the blatant conflict and suggest independent advice be sought? – I get ignored and called biased and conflicted and the beneficiary advisors continue to control the process and provide the advice.

How much is 1% on rates? about $120,000

How many percent on rates is $5 million? oh only a cool 42%

What is the preliminary proposed average rates increase for the coming year? 42%!

Who pays for all of this excessive wastage? – you, the long suffering ratepayer

A few more points –

The whole PDP process has been wrought with legal and procedural inconsistencies as expertly documented and presented to Council by Owen McShane.

Like Clive Boonham on the illegality of the Ecocare rates (and who has now been proven to be right) Owen was largely ignored by Council.

It appears that as with Ecocare, Council may have failed to meet the requirements of the Local Government Act to go out and re-consult with the public when it significantly increased the scope of work.

Unlike Ecocare which is already in the ground, the PDP is just an incomplete (and very expensive) book, and if a direction was sought from the High Court on the basis of the gross unlawfulness it could potentially be made a nullity.

With potential amalgamation in Northland looming, it is likely that the PDP will not even become operative. If amalgamation occurs a whole new plan will have to be written for the new super unitary authority.

Council has been told by its beneficiary advisors that it will basically burn in hell if it withdraws the plan and that it would have to start from scratch again and this would cost at least as much again. The claim that it would cost at least as much again is of course absolute rubbish. The fact that it can be withdrawn for any reason right up until hearings on appeals commence is confirmed in statute here and by preeminent RMA barrister Paul Cavanagh QC here.

The process has not yet passed the stage where it cannot be withdrawn. But once it passes that point the Council (and ratepayers) are at the mercy of the Court, and a war of attrition begins. Those with the most money (i.e. government funded Environmental Defence Society (EDS) and DOC) will win, you will unnecessarily lose even more property rights and pay for Council’s weak defence through further rates increases.

So the question is, why is the Council continuing down the path of pouring yet more money into a flawed and potentially unlawful process that may be made a nullity or become redundant even before it becomes operative?

I have met very few ratepayers who are in favour of the PDP in its current form. The whole process seems to be driven by BECA and EDS in favour of the lofty city ideals of EDS, DOC, and Forest and Bird, none of whom even pay rates in the district.

My humble suggestion is that all further expenditure on progressing this gross assault on ratepayers rights, funded by gross wastage of ratepayers money should be put on hold until all potential RMA and LGA procedural and legal anomalies have been fully and independently examined. Whatever the outcome, Owen would have wanted this analysis taken through to a definitive conclusion – the Council at least owes him that.

Your input is valued - contribute to the debate here.

The bursting of a boil

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +1300

With several interviews on National radio during the week, the pressure has been building and now tonight the beautiful coastal town of Mangawhai featured on TV3 news, as the festering woes of Kaipara burst in the national media.

The Mangawhai Residents and Ratepayers Association meet tomorrow Sunday 26 February at 130PM in the Senior Citizens Hall, Fagan Pl, Mangawhai Heads, and new Kaipara CEO Steve Ruru will be at the meeting to answer questions.

In the meantime you can catch up on the latest on Kaipara Concerns here, on the Kaipara Konnection here, and send an email to contactus@kaiparaconcerns.co.nz to join the Kaipara Action Group (scroll down to the blog dated 21.02.12 for details).

Join the debate on Ecocare here and on Council's performance here.

Tip of Iceberg

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +1300

More on the SS Titanic.... I mean SS Kaipara from Morning Report.

The Mangawhai Ratepayers Association says the borrowing of millions of dollars by the Kaipara District Council appears to have been unlawful, and creditors may be at risk click here to listen.

You can post comments here

For the latest excellent commentaries and analyses on Kaipara Concerns click here.

Mergers and Acquisitions

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +1300

The Mayor hit the national media on Tuesday about the massive debt and massive rates increases to cover it - all nothing to do with him of course. You can hear the interview here and comment here.

Minister of Local Government Dr Nick Smith wants to get rid of regional councils (see The Listener lead story 25 Feb) and favours amalgamation of district councils. With that news the scramble is on for the district councils of Northland to get their hands on the golden egg of Northland and saviour of the heavily endebted - the regional council assets.

A meeting was held yesterday between Whangarei and Kaipara District Councils to discuss what might happen if a merger was to occur.

Meanwhile earlier that morning Minister Nick Smith was on National Radio about Kaipara - we're famous but all for the wrong reasons. He emphatically stated that "the Mayor of Kaipara has been very clear that even if they do merge with the Whangarei Council, the debt that they've incurred over this mess would need to stick with those ratepayers that are in the current Kaipara district". The Mayor had no specific mandate from Council* to make such a statement, in fact the Council hadn't even discussed amalgamation, and certainly had no mandate from the ratepayers. What a great way to start a negotiation. You can hear the interview here (scroll down to 08:23am) and comment here.

*Foonote - last year I raised the matter of the Mayor making public statements to the media on behalf of Council without Council approval to try to stop this sort of thing occuring - this contravened the Code of Conduct. With that your Council voted to change the Code of Conduct to allow the Mayor to make press statements on behalf of Council without Council approval - and this is what you get.