Editorial - Tuesday February 19, 2013

Why must we pay?

THE decision by a Far North District Council staff member to apply for a restraining order against trenchant council critic Des Mahoney was foolish. Even in the unlikely event of the court ruling that Mr Mahoney must maintain a degree of decorum in his communications with the council, and address the recipients of his missives by their titles as opposed to their given names, the council was always going to come out of this looking petty and obsessed with a 'problem' that the average ratepayer, friend or foe of Mr Mahoney, would regard as silly.

The real issue now, however, is that this misguided attempt to force a standard of behaviour upon Mr Mahoney was not the doing of 'the council" It was apparently the brainwave of one employee, with the support of a colleague who formally witnessed it. So now that it has been abandoned, as it was always going to be once sanity took hold, why is it the ratepayer who's forking out for Mr Mahoney's costs?

This application was not designed to benefit the Far North's ratepayers in any way. Rather it was another attempt, this time by an individual, to muzzle a man who has been a pain in the neck to the council, its employees and elected members, for some years. That council staff can apparently assume that the ratepayers will fund their efforts to put a stop to what is fundamentally a personal issue speaks volumes about their lack of regard for their duty to ensure that every precious ratepayer dollar is spent to the best effect.

This isn't a huge sum - $2218.50 won't break the bank, although the ratepayer will also be meeting the applicant's costs, which have not been specified - but the principle is an important one. This was effectively a private legal action, and to undertake it at the ratepayers' expense is unacceptable. To undertake it without reference to the people we elect to represent us adds to the perception that some council employees at least seem to think that what is ours is theirs.

At least some of the elected members are understandably grumpy about this. It was discussed in the council chambers last week, in committee, unfortunately, Mayor Wayne Brown saying he and others had expressed their views in unambiguous terms. He had been aware of some kind of legal action being taken against Mr Mahoney, but he understood it involved unpaid rates.

He also said that he would never have agreed to the lodging of the application had he been aware of it, and while there was no question of financial impropriety - the chief executive has the right to spend money far in excess of $2218.50 without council approval - he regarded the exercise as foolish and wasteful.

Quite apart from the frivolous waste of ratepayers' money, which Mr Brown clearly saw this as, he and his councillors have another problem. The great majority of people, those who don't have routine dealings with council staff on a professional basis, think of the Mayor and councillors when they think of the council. Credit and criticism, whoever is responsible, tends to attach to them. This is patently unfair on this occasion. The councillors have enough on their plates without staff serving another helping. It can be all but guaranteed that this will cost some of them votes later this year, and they have every right to be angry about that.

The obvious fact that some council employees have had enough of Mr Mahoney is accepted. Des Mahoney is not a man to pull his punches, and it would be surprising if some people had not taken deep offence at some of his correspondence with them. There are other ways of dealing with that than seeking a restraining order, however, like telling him he may only communicate with the chief executive. That, with the clear message that correspondence with any other employee would be ignored, would have protected the sensitivities of the person who lodged the application, at our expense.

It isn't only the colourful manner in which Mr Mahoney tends to express himself that is the problem for the council though. What irks staff, and to a greater or lesser degree the elected members, is that he is privy to all sorts of information they don't want him to have. The council leaks like a sieve, and most of those leaks dribble in Mr Mahoney's direction.

This newspaper deals almost exclusively with the unfailingly professional communications manager Richard Edmondson, who does a very good job of obtaining answers to questions channelled through him, although his colleagues do not always make that easy. This newspaper has also accepted information gleaned by Mr Mahoney, but has never asked him to obtain information on its behalf. If it did, however, it's a fair bet that it would arrive much more quickly.

An example. Some weeks ago this newspaper asked if rates were being paid on Te Paki Farm, the Age having been advised by an informed source (not Des Mahoney) that they were not. Answer - We can't tell you that without breaching the Privacy Act. Question - We don't want to know if rates are being paid, just if the land is being rated. Answer - We don't know who owns the land. Question - It's owned by DOC and leased to Landcorp. Is it being rated? Answer - You will have to give us legal descriptions of the titles. Age response - If you don't answer the question by 5pm Monday we will state that you don't know. Answer (at 4.40pm Monday) - the land that can be rated is being rated.

None of that was the fault of Mr Edmondson, who was as nonplussed by the performance as the Age was. But it's hardly surprising that people get frustrated. The rating department, incidentally, is where the application for a restraining order came from. The same rating department that was severely embarrassed, or should have been, by last year's revelations from Mr Mahoney that a piece of farm land in Kaitaia had not been rated for 12 years, the council's proposed solution (subsequently denied) being to write off the bulk of the money owing .

None of this has anything to do with the people we elect to represent us, and it is important that they not be regarded as responsible. There may be nothing they can do to see that the person responsible pays Mr Mahoney's costs, plus those incurred by them in terms of lawyers' time and court costs, but they should. This was a fit of pique that should never have got as far as it did. The fact that it was only withdrawn two working days before it was due to be heard raises questions regarding how far an individual employee can go before someone exercises some oversight. It also seems odd, to the layman, that individual employees are able to initiate legal action of this nature without reference to the elected members. Surely, if only as a matter of courtesy, they should have been advised.

The one question that does not need to be asked is who should pay, whether the application succeeded or went pear-shaped? Try going to court with the company chequebook in the private sector and see how far you get.

And to top it all off Mr Mahoney hasn't been silenced. He's become stronger, having been gifted yet more ammunition manufactured by a council employee at our expense.