Community board defers going to Ombudsman
At its December meeting, the Golden Bay Community Board decided to put off going to the office of the Ombudsman about the amount of business being conducted in committee by council’s enterprises sub-committee. This group is charged with the oversight of Port Tarakohe and the Takaka Areodrome, among other income-earning enterprises.
“All of the business is being conducted in committee, and that has been the case for a quite a while,” said board chair Joe Bell. “We’ve had the briefing papers only once.”
Mr Bell originally recommended that the board resolve to refer the matter to the office of the Ombudsman and other agencies as appropriate. Tasman District Mayor and council’s community services manager Lloyd Kennedy suggested the board let the recommendation lie on the table until the matter could be pursued.
“I’ve had a discussion with the CEO but you’ve had no answer from me yet. Why go straight to the Ombudsman? I’m happy for you to chase me up on this.”
Board member Carolyn McLellan said, “We need some transparency. Tarakohe is important to this community. We need to see balance sheets especially.”
Integrated health project. Liza Eastman spoke about the integrated health project, saying that there are at least two matters that demand public meetings - the sale of the medical centre and the DHB getting out of running a hospital.
“The IMG’s open days were excellent for information-sharing – though the information was poor - but it was all on an individual basis, whereas a public meeting is for numbers of people to become informed at once,” said Mrs Eastman.
Victoria Davis, the Bay’s only working radiographer, said that she had “great reservations” about the integrated health proposal.
“I’m fearful that the way the project is proceeding, we will get fewer services instead of enhanced services,” said Ms Davis. “The equipment I use is old but I’m looking forward to using it for another 20 years. This facility is not broken, so it doesn’t need fixing. A big building will not provide better service.”
Councillor Stuart Borlase, who is on the IMG said, “We held the open days so that people could become informed but public meetings will be needed too.”
Collingwood track. Rosamund Arthur spoke about the poor state of the track from the Washington Street subdivision in Collingwood to the highway opposite the Joan Whiting Resr Home.
The developer of the subdivision has apparently paid money to council for the upkeep of the track.
Community facility project. Bjarne Vandeskog addressed the board on this subject. The Golden Bay Work Centre Trust engaged Bjarne’s company to run a lottery-funded exercise to discover the community’s needs.
“There are a lot of different needs,” said Bjarne. “For example there is no dedicated performance venue, no conference venue and no youth facility. On the basis of the information we gathered from the community earlier in the year, we concluded that a comprehensive and combined approach was required.”
Bjarne has met with TDC community services manager Lloyd Kennedy to initiate a proper stock-take of the supply of halls in the Bay. Seven are administered and another five are owned by private entitities.
“We will collect data about usage so we can decide which halls should be included in the ‘Domino Project’, in which some organisations move out to bigger or smaller premises. Halls are the hearts of many local communities, but sometimes the heart needs to pump a little bit harder.”
Agenda items
The Labyrinth Rocks car park work is proceeding. Mr Kennedy said that if the whether was kind, he was hopeful that the car park would be sealed before Christmas.
Golden Bay Stream Care. The board decided to give $250 from its discretionary fund to the group as seeding funding for the operation of nurseries and to carry out its operations. The group needed an annual budget of about $7000 to raise and plant 6000 trees and liaise with farmers. It had missed out on funds from its former sources.
Golden Bay’s wharves and jetties used to be council assets but their licences were not renewed, so their administration went to DOC by default.
The board asked council to relicense the wharves as TDC assets once they have been upgraded, as allowed for in the 2009 LTCCP, and liaise with DOC through the process.
Mrs McLellan described the wharves and jetties as “part of our heritage” and thanked Mr Kennedy for getting the wharves “back on the agenda.”
Neil Wilson
