Letters: A woeful response

Mayor John Carter

In regard to Annie Totill's received answers from the FNDC, relating to the use of the Perehipe reserve, (Northland Age, April 27), good on you Annie, but I hope you are lodging a complaint to the Omsbudsman re the woeful response you got.

Talk about something rotten in the state of Denmark, Absurbistan comes to mind regarding your question about consents for improvements erected by the previous camp owners.

The council spokesperson gives a longish reply about consents for the toilet block, which I gather the previous owner didn't build and which you didn't specifically ask about, and then states; "Consents for any remaining structures on the reserve were likely not required under the district plan rules." How very unlikely!

Is anyone then able to construct a children's private play area, accommodation cabins, powered sites, driveway access and fences on a public reserve, and thereby have an income stream, without consideration of any consent process?

I think not, and the FNDC appears to be looking even more ludicrous in regard to their action, or rather non-action, regarding the informal arrangement they had with the Top 10 Holiday Park.

Recently I also had the experience of asking questions of the council, also lodged under the OIA, more specifically under the provisions of the Local Government and Meetings Act, in regard to the questions previously asked by the editor of this newspaper in his editorial (Why are we waiting? January 17 last) relating to the Sweetwater bore and Kaitaia's water supply, whereby he did not receive any concise answers in a very poor council response.

After nearly a month of waiting, I was advised that my questions had been passed on to the council's legal team and then an extension of time was requested. After a complaint to the Omsbudsman I finally received 31 pages of information, most of it not relevant to my questions, but informative, and an apologetic phone call from mayor Carter.

Since the FNDC doesn't seem to deem it necessary to inform you mere ratepayers, I will tell you this project (Sweetwater) has been deferred until 2019, and is not currently supplying water to anyone. The Kaitaia Reference Group has now concluded, apparently after not one meeting concerning the issues it was set up to deal with.

It was/is an extremely expensive hole in the ground, with consent costs of $342,505,72 and $556,044,79 in relation to the bore and headworks, pipe set-up and 'work in progress'.

In regard to the million-dollar missing cheque, nothing was forthcoming on that, so back to the Omsbudsman with another complaint, but then another apologetic call from mayor Carter, who had previously informed me he had no knowledge of where the cheque went.

This time I told Mr Carter I knew where it had gone, and that I knew that he knew, so he was then more forthcoming. It turns out that the cheque was actually for $1.8 million of our money, and was paid to the land owner for "intellectual property rights" or some such.

Incredible, but I do believe mayor Carter when he says he was very disappointed with the Serious Fraud Office investigation and finding, and he did indeed inherit this highly irregular situation from the previous Wayne Brown regime.

Unfortunately it seems these days both central and local governments have lost sight of the fact that they are there to serve us, rather than themselves. It should not be necessary for citizens and ratepayers such as Annie and myself to have to resort to using the OIA to get information that should be freely available.

I F BURKE
RD3 Kaitaia