Whangārei District Councillor Ken Couper is worried what will happen to $41m in council water reserves when Three Waters reforms are pushed through.
A Whangārei District Councillor wants a closer look at what will happen to $41 million of council water reserves in the wake of the Government announcing it is to push ahead with Three Waters.
Ken Couper and five fellow councillors have forced an extraordinary council meeting on Friday to look at what to do with the ratepayer-funded water and wastewater reserves in the face of the Government late last week saying it will be going ahead with its Three Waters plans.
Couper said the reserves were ratepayer money put aside that he did not want to see as of right going to the Government restructure as it took WDC Three Waters assets to set up the Entity A water services body.
"They (Entity A) are already gaining our paid for (WDC) infrastructure with no debt and we do not wish to transfer our ratepayers' cash to Entity A to help subsidise other councils," Couper said.
Entity A is to combine the Three Waters functions of Far North District Council (FNDC), Kaipara District Council (KDC) and WDC along with Auckland Council.
"We are concerned at the makeup of Entity A. This is particularly in regard to the voice of Whangārei relative to Auckland. We would like urgent discussions with Auckland Council on a mutual position," Couper said.
He said it was clear from the Government's announcement last Friday it would be proceeding with Three Waters, in spite of councils' opposition that had still not gone away as a result of the newly announced progress push.
The Government had in late April included most of the 40-plus improvement recommendations of a working group it set up to address representation, governance and accountability in its Three Waters plans.
These had however been the result of a working group limited by strict terms of reference that had not adequately addressed the concerns raised in opposition from the breakaway 32-council group Community 4 Local Democracy (C4LD) formed in December over Three Waters concerns.
Couper heads a councillor sextet which on Monday put a notice of motion to new WDC chief executive Simon Weston calling for the extraordinary meeting.
"It was notable that Friday's government announcement was timed to come after most New Zealand councils had their monthly council meetings – as was the case with our council. We need to therefore act now, rather than waiting for the next council meeting, to decide, in public, what WDC wants to do next," Couper said.
Council standing orders allow for councillors to force an extraordinary meeting if more than one-third do so. The six councillors - Couper, Deputy Mayor Greg Innes and Crs Gavin Benney, Jayne Golightly, Phil Halse and Carol Peters - 43 per cent of WDC's 14 elected politicians.
Couper said the Government had told councils it was going to proceed. It was taking their infrastructure assets, but there had been no clarity around what would happen with any ratepayer reserves judiciously built up by councils in rare situations such as existed in the case of WDC.
"We need to think about what we want to do with this money," he said.
"Most of this fund is collected via targeted rates, therefore, cannot be used for another project outside of water. We wish to create a WDC commitment to our ratepayers that these reserve accounts will not be transferred to the new Entity (A) without formulating a fully debated WDC position."
Options included paying out customer credits, along the lines of what happened with Northland's Northpower and Top Energy. Another was to use it towards the more than 30 per cent water rates rise now to potentially hit ratepayers in the wake of mega water user Marsden Point Refinery closing on March 31, with the loss of $2.4 million of water rates income a year. Further Three Waters infrastructure could also be looked into.
He said WDC now needed to think about whether it wanted to continue its "gold-plated" approach to Three Waters infrastructure, given this was all to be going into the new entity which the Government had said would come into force in 2024.
Couper said Whangārei was in a unique situation nationally, with quality Three Waters infrastructure and reserves.
The council had since 2008 worked to build those ratepayer-funded reserves after protests through Whangārei's city streets demanded an end to ongoing sewage spills into Whangārei Harbour.
Couper wanted public feedback from ratepayers on what they thought should happen with the $41m ahead of the council developing a new position on this – and a number of other Three Waters aspects.
This could come as part of WDC consultation on its proposed 30 per cent water rates price hike for the coming 2022/2023 financial year. This public consultation ends on Friday.
■ Local Democracy Reporting is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air