Some readers have asked if I would do a weekly round-up of my council activities. I will certainly try to do this for you (and hopefully busy weeks won’t result in me forgetting).

This week was a busy week with council. On Monday and Wednesday evenings, I attended the first two of the three days of hearings on the proposed change of purpose of the Turitea Reserve and proposed amendments to the Turitea Reserve Management Plan. Council received 530 submissions to these changes. These were distributed to councillors in three packages. I followed my usual routine of reading all submissions as they come in to me, then re-reading the lot the day before the hearings. The hearings are set in three sessions on each of the three days - starting 5pm, 7.30pm and 9pm. The final day of hearings is on Wednesday, 27th September.

This, from a council press release. I suspect the Standard will not publish this (I can’t recall any instance of them ever publishing a correction).

The City Council has never questioned the decision by Horizons to allow Fonterra effluent to be discharged into the Manawatu River or taken a position over it.

Water and Waste Services Manager, Chris Pepper, is concerned at a Manawatu Standard report that suggests the Council has taken a stance over Horizon’s decision to grant a resource consent to Fonterra.

Well, what a week I have had! On Sunday I boarded a plane for Hokitika. Now, one would think that when Air NZ checks a passenger in and checks a bag through to Hokitika they *should* have known (and informed me) that all flights for that destination had been cancelled that day. I guess it was much more fun for them to have me arrive in Christchurch to find that the weather over the Alps was stormy and no planes were flying. No rental cars available at all, and no public transport to get me to my final destination in Greymouth left me wondering how the heck I was going to get there in time for the start of my RMA Accreditation training by 9am on Monday morning. All flights the next day were fully booked, so I was happy to take up the suggestion that I wait around a few hours in case the weather broke.
Finally, around 8pm an Air NZ staff member said they saw a “window of opportunity” and “would take a chance” at getting the tired and grumpy stranded passengers into Hokitika. They wished us luck as we boarded the plane which didn’t exactly inspire confidence.
The plane was tiny, and decided to imitate a roller coaster crossed with a bungy and I was not at all impressed when one of the crew mentioned that he hoped we would see the runway before we landed.
As you can no doubt tell, I got there safely - and survived the drive from hell through a nasty, nasty storm to Greymouth.

I worked on Monday morning, leaving just in time to race off to the Kingsgate Hotel for the Local Government New Zealand Elected Members Training which started at midday. I was disappointed to see so few of our councillors there, especially as there have been many regulatory changes in the last three years.

June, 2004

I attended the Local Government NZ workshop on “Improving the Resource Management Act” at Wellington on 23rd June. The RMA is currently under review and the workshop, which I attended with Deputy-Mayor Alison Wall, was both very informative and a great opportunity for discussing issues with representatives from councils throughout New Zealand.

Read my report to council …
(.pdf format, 79.2KB)

9th - 12th October, 2003

I participated in the 11th Annual Resource Management Law Association conference in Blenheim with Cr’s Cruden, Ireland, and Podd.

You can download and read my report to council
(.pdf format, 97.0KB)