On the 9^th of May the Whangarei District Councillor, decided on what needed to be included within the 2019/20 Annual Plan.  An additional motion was moved by Cr. Vince Cocurullo that $50k be added to the well needed CCTV camera budget, after a request coming from one of the ratepayers during submissions and after checking information with Whangarei’s CitySafe team and the local businesses, yet the Mayor and some councillors did not feel it was needed.

An independent contractor Andrew Chuter from ARC Security, states that an extra $50k means that the Council could install an additional 4 to 12 new cameras, depending on location and what cabling was already in place.  Presently the Council camera systems are controlled by the Police with volunteers monitoring the cameras, all under the umbrella of CitySafe.

In his closing argument Cr. Cocurullo asked the Councillors “does it take someone getting majorly hurt or even raped before this Council will do anything?” as he felt the situation could be sorted out now, rather than waiting for the next incident.  Cr. Halse, Christie, Glen and Cocurullo voted for, while the other Councillors and Mayor voted against and Cr. Benny was absent.

During that same meeting, all of the Councillors voted for raising the budget by $2m for the sealing of unsealed roads, to underwrite $89k of the Camera Obscura, and to include an additional $31k for the Waipu Caledonian Society for maintenance of their sports fields.

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