Councillor's opinion

What's on in council this week - 27 October 2009  

by Councillor Craig Bauld

I read an article somewhere that suggested you could help delay Alzheimers by keeping your mind occupied and challenged. If that is the case then councillors should be safe for a while yet - there's enough food for thought in this week's meeting to rattle anyone's brain cells. Biggest item is undoubtedly the ECT offer to buy a share in the Tauwhareparae farms in order to assist with the cost of wastewater. Whooee, I know some people will have immediate kneejerk reactions, but it is a real curly one, needing very careful thought. I have always been in favour of selling the farms, but that was because I wanted a better and more reliable cashflow from such a major ratepayer investment, farms being good at capital growth but not very good as cash cows, which is what ratepayers really need. I never had in mind to spend the proceeds (or even half of them). The farms, of course, belong to all ratepayers, not just city people who face the wastewater cost. On the other hand, flood protection clearly needs money too, so perhaps there is potential for sharing. But there are a whole lot of other issues - price for example. When Govt wanted to buy the farms for Ngati Porou treaty settlements we said it would cost $50 million, plus a donation - selling at any lesser value now would kind of look fork-tongued to Ngati Porou, wouldn't it? And considering how much trouble we seem to get into trying to run the farms when we wholly own them, what mess are we likely to make of a partnership? But quite apart from the obvious difficulties, the bit that bothers me is, if I sell the farms I want it to bring in $40-50million of NEW money to this district, I don't really want to just recycle local money. I never wanted the wastewater scheme, but now that we have to have it maybe we just have to grin and bear it. Rates will leap upwards, but that really just means we pay the true cost of sewage disposal, as we pay the true cost of most things. Hmmm, I don't know, nothing simple about this one - all phone calls, either side, gratefully accepted, talking through the issues with people is a very good way for councillors to see the whole picture clearly. Just to complicate matters, during our public-excluded session we're supposed to be interviewing candidates for the two vacancies on the farms Board.

Also on the agenda, the Waipaoa River flood control scheme (you will have read reports from the operations committee about potential $24 million cost - ouch). Nothing easy there either. And the Tairawhiti Development Partnership, a review of its functions as it seems to be wobbling a bit. And consideration of the local leadership body proposed as part of the Turanga claims - always a good argument when that sort of thing comes up. Tourism Eastland's service agreement comes up for review, and that's another one that generally provokes plenty of debate. And we adopt Council's annual report. Almost any single one of these agenda items might normally be enough to guarantee a long and argumentative day around the table. All of them on the same agenda, phew, hopefully some of our more loquacious members will wear themselves out early on!