Our mayor and some Councillors appear intent on paying for a non-urgent building, while failing to initiate urgent repairs on a desperately dangerous road.

Why?

At the Whangarei District Council meeting of 23 February the mayor apologised to public spectators for the acoustics of the building and said she hoped to have it sorted soon.

In itself, this was laudable, and when Vitalise Whangarei and residents of Wright Road presented their case for improvements, all the Councillors appeared to agree. Yet Wright and McCardie Roads have been slated for sealing for over 10 years, and it has now become extremely urgent in view of the approximately 120 trucks travelling on them per day. The Mayor and some councillors want NZTA to pay for this work despite Council currently having sufficient funds to seal now (approx.$4 million). This is because Council would prefer to spend those funds on a new building with better acoustics.

Council’s annual plan for 2017 includes spending $10 million on a new building. Unfortunately, there is no platform for public opinion on this spend, or even the possibility to talk about the project, because the majority of Councillors voted to withhold the plan from public review, despite other Councils around New Zealand doing precisely this – being transparent with the ratepayers whose money they are spending.

Personally I’m of the opinion that a need is more important than a want. I wanted the annual plan to be made public to introduce the option of discussing and potentially reassigning the proposed new building spend so more money could be directed to badly needed infrastructure. I also think we could better utilise our existing facilities if the councils want to work together more closely, so it doesn’t have to cost ten million dollars.

Public comments arising from those who attended the meeting, included:

“It appears the mayor has put the new building, for her better acoustics in chamber, ahead of true need.

“I came away disappointed with her. The roading must be addressed, as must safety and poverty, which are the two other things that Vitalise Whangarei is working on with CitySafe and Love Food Hate Waste.

“At least the Mayor won’t have to strain to be heard any more [in a new $10m building] although we still will.”

Whangarei what do you think?  Should the Councils be working more closely together to save public money?  Should roads with 120+ heavy truck movements be dealt with immediately?