22 May 2020
Media: Local Democracy Reporter
Topic: Civic Centre refurbishment
Enquiry
Someone has advised me some offices in the council building are undergoing renovations.
If correct, Which offices are they? What are the offices normally used for?
How much is the cost of the renovation? How much has been allocated for it?
Why is it being done?
When is the last time they were renovated?
Who approved the funding for the renovations and when?
Where is the funding coming from?
When did the renovations begin?
Subsequent questions
Can you please clarify:
Which offices are on the first floor? What are the offices normally used for?
How much is the cost of this stage of the renovation?
When did the latest stage of renovations begin?
Also, I invite the council to respond to this comment from Councillor Peter Bentley:
"Maybe once one moves above the $200,000 salary, your office surrounds must reflect your elevated status.
"This area was renovated within the past six years with increased security procedures and a more complex system off gaining access.
"Very poor activity to be undertaken in our present pandemic climate.
"The days of easy, open access to our senior officials are well gone."
From councillor Raj Kumar, for right of reply from the council and the mayor:
"This is not the time [for renovations]. We have to be clever and smart.
"I think we should stop it. We shouldn't be doing anything. Put the money where it is going to be needed.
"Whether it was in the Long Term Plan or not, we should review it. It's not a good idea, it's not a good look.
"It is ratepayer money. Somebody needs to call the shots and say 'hey man, we are not going to spend any more money'.
"The mayor from the top, should be able to say 'no more'.
"The Long Term Plan had economic boom in mind, but the boom is not there. We are in recovery mode."
Response
From Chief Financial Officer Thomas Coll (who also manages the property team):
Renewal of the Haupapa Street Civic Centre was approved by Council in 2015 as part of the 2015-25 Long-term Plan with $3.9m allocated over six years.
The building is more than 30 years old and this is the first extensive renewal programme since it opened.
Repairs and replacements needed included fixing holes in floors, holes in ceilings, sulphur dioxide leaks, replacing scuffed carpets, old furniture, air conditioning, and data wiring and renewing public and staff toilets.
Work started in late 2016 with roof repairs, followed by work on the ground floor, then the second floor and now the first floor.
Staging the refurbishment over an extended period of time, rather than doing it all at once, has avoided the cost that would be associated with having to vacate the building and lease external premises.
We are now in the final stages with work progressing on the first floor and this is expected to be almost complete by the end of the year.
Further information provided following further questions (also from Thomas Coll):
The IT team, Strategy Group, HR team, executive team and the mayor are located in the first floor office areas.
The cost of this stage is approximately $1.7m.
This stage of the renovations began last October.
Council offices have not been renovated since the building opened more than 30 years ago. In 2014 walls were removed to create an open plan environment.
Renovations started in late 2016, following approval as part of the 2015-25 Long-term Plan (as outlined in previous information provided).
From Mayor Chadwick:
Part of the Rotorua economic recovery strategy that elected members adopted - and which is reflected in our draft annual plan - is re-starting council projects that were already underway as quickly as possible, to help keep businesses in work and people in jobs.
That is part of the economic stimulus Council can provide to help cushion the impact of COVID-19 and contribute to the recovery. The Civic Centre renovations are providing work for local contractors and their staff.
The building has been in a parlous state for some years - I've had ceiling tiles fall on my desk. Continuously putting much-needed repairs, maintenance and renewals off only costs more in the long run.
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Media: Local Democracy Reporter
Topic: CBD parking discussions
Enquiry
I am working on a story following up on the council's decision on Tuesday to refer the discussion re free parking in the CBD to the next O&M committee.
There are some comments here from councillors Reynold Macpherson and Peter Bentley I would like to put to the council and mayor for right of reply:
Councillor Reynold Macpherson:
MAYOR'S PROCEDURAL TRICKERY STALLS SUPPORT FOR CBD BUSINESSES IN SOLVENCY CRISES
Wrong, it was not the Rotorua Lakes Council that applied the handbrake. It was the Mayor. In my opinion, the Mayor manipulated meeting procedure this morning to give her officials the upper hand in a policy review over parking and denied support to CBD businesses for at least six weeks, if at all.
The facts are that Cr Peter Bentley and I submitted a Notice of Motion that free parking be introduced to support CBD businesses. We also suggested that the Mayor use her discretion, as she has done in the past, to invite Susan Jory to speak from the floor to her petition that has already collected 2,600 signatures in favour of free parking.
But no. The Mayor reversed the suggestion to justify deferring discussion of the Motion, and redirecting it to the Operations and Monitoring Committee to meet 11 June. This, she explained, would give officials time to prepare a report on parking, which is code for controlling the discussion. And further discussion was ended by the Mayor's ruling from the chair.
There are four major problems with such manipulation, again in my view:
1. The officials will prepare a report without knowing the views of elected representatives. Democracy was denied by crude authoritarianism.
2. The officials' report will be used to control discussion at O&M, if form is any guide, and probably consign the free parking idea to the dustbin.
3. The policy capture by officials, enabled by the Mayor, will politicise policy making to ensure that no credit goes to RDRR councillors who continue to speak truth to power.
4. CBD business facing solvency crises have had their needs swept aside by a Mayor who appears not to care.
Councillor Peter Bentley:
"By deferring it the mayor has managed to put everything back about six weeks, and by that time, many more people, obviously, all the small businesses will be going broke.
"We've got we've got a couple of weeks before we have the O&M meeting. And then, whatever that decides, nothing will happen until the next full council meeting because nothing can happen until it's passed by full Council. All she's managed to do is put everything back. If this is an indication of a mayor who cares about the local community, we are sadly lacking.
"If Merepeka or Tania had done that [parking motion] proposal, it could have been and it would have been discussed straightaway. We could have, within the space of a couple of hours, a totally new or different or not new or different parking policy. Just by having a debate, by having it around the table. It's fairly easily understood.
"We've gonna wait now until the O&M meeting. By that time, what they'll be trying to make Reynold and I feel guilty about is the fact that we're prepared to throw away, between $2 and $3 million in revenue. I would suggest it hasn't been anywhere near that in the last five years, but that's the figure they're banding around at the moment. I dispute that figure.
"If they wanted to save $2 to $3 million, wouldn't it be better to stop underwriting things like Crankworx and the film studio and adding 49 per cent to the funding for Te Arawa? If they were truly interested in saving money, they would probably stop buying vehicles for a wee while. There's heaps of ways that this council would save money.
"She [the mayor] could have [used her discretion]. She is well aware that there is a petition going around, how many signatures it's got on it. Whether it's actually physically going to be presented on a given day is semantics. It is common knowledge that it's there. She could have invited [Jory] to speak. She was just playing her own little political gamemanship there, that basically anything that a person with a RDRR background comes up with, she's going to squash it like a bug.
"The staff report, without discussions with council, is going to be just more of the same. The council staff has got to come to the councillors and let councillors decide what is the best parking system. What happens is that the council staff come up and say 'this is the new parking system', and we've signed a contract with somebody in Auckland for the next 20 years or something. I don't think there is a way that we should be doing business. We should be in conjunction with staff, deciding our parking policy, not being told what the parking policy is by a couple of people that are paid far too much to come up with some rather poor recommendations. By the time we get to see it, it's fait accompli, it's all done and dusted, you just sign it off. So much of our decision making is we are told by staff what is happening. They don't think like a business. They've never been in business, they don't understand it."
Questions:
- Can you please clarify if the next O&M meeting will be June 4 or June 11? [There is some confusion about this. Your online meeting calendar suggests it is June 4 but June 11 was discussed in the meeting on Tuesday.]
- The PrestoParking app was launched very recently. Does that in any way hinder the council from considering Susan Jory's petition?
- Can you please confirm whatever decision O&M make on the topic will then need to go back to the full council?
Subsequent:
One other thing -
Peter Bentley says he voted against the mayor's procedural motion on Tuesday (to refer his motion to O&M) and requested his name be recorded as against it as well. "I am at a loss as to why Ms Hopkins did not note that fact."
I invite the council to respond to this if desired - can you please wrap it in with your response at midday?
Response
From Mayor Chadwick:
We all want to do everything we can to support our CBD as we work towards our district's recovery.
We're also very aware that parking is seen as an issue for people and we are willing to have that debate and to give the petitioner the fair treatment she deserves.
Councillors Bentley and Macpherson have tried to use this as a political stunt and are now angry it didn't work. It didn't work because they were attempting to undermine good decision-making.
Uninformed debate leads to uninformed, ad hoc decision-making, and that is not good governance.
There is no "trickery" in following due process that ensures informed and transparent debate, and ensures we take all relevant matters and implications into consideration, including whether consultation is needed before a decision can be made. There will be many factors to consider with respect to parking.
This repeated criticism of staff is totally inappropriate and unacceptable. It appears these councillors don't want facts, legislative and procedural requirements or financial implications to get in the way of their politically-driven decision-making.
Council officers' role is to provide expert information and advice that enables well-informed, well-considered decisions, and political interference or opinion has no place in that.
I think people are tired of silly political posturing, especially right now. This is a time to focus on moving Rotorua forward in the right way, through good leadership and robust decision-making that has the best interests of all our residents at heart.
Other information sought. Can be attributed to 'a council spokesperson':
Re next O&M meeting: 4 June
Re whether PrestoParking app would hinder the council from considering Susan Jory's petition?: No
Can you please confirm whatever decision O&M make on the topic will then need to go back to the full council? Any recommendation from O&M would need to go to Full Council.
Re Cr Bentley's vote against: Cr Bentley has not contacted us about this but we would be happy to discuss it with him and re-check the meeting footage.
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Media: The Mud
Topic: Shovel-ready projects submitted by RLC for Government funding
Enquiry
Patricia Hosking, who produced a column for The Mud last week, received an email from the Minister of Finance Grant Robertson. Patricia responded. Please see the exchange [see HERE].
Included in this is her statement as follows:
"Rotorua has not submitted any climate change projects for shovel ready funding and instead is forging ahead with tourism projects."
Can the council please comment on the statement around Rotorua not submitting climate change project among those submitted for shovel ready funding.
Response
Strategy Group Manager Jean-Paul Gaston:
Projects were required to be able to start within six to 12 months, and needed to provide economic stimulus and jobs.
Rotorua Lakes Council was careful to ensure that our projects met the criteria, including the need for projects to be able to start within 6 to 12 months and to provide economic stimulus and jobs. We did not come up with new projects but put forward projects already planned but not yet funded.
Resilience to climate change and protecting and improving the environment are key components of three of the projects submitted by Council - the proposed wastewater treatment plant upgrade, sewage reticulation of our lakes areas (in this case connecting Rotoehu to the new Rotoiti/Rotoma network) and new infrastructure to support new housing and development near the airport.
Projects submitted for consideration by Bay of Plenty Regional Council include Ngongotaha flood protection works which our councils are working on jointly, alongside community representatives.
Supporting the recovery of Rotorua's tourism industry, which has contributed more than $800 billion per year to our economy and has been part of our district's DNA for well over a century, is part of the district's - and New Zealand's - economic recovery plan. The aim is to keep businesses and sectors going and people in jobs, as well as encourage innovation and diversification.
