Key points:

• Several representatives of residents, ratepayers, and community associations across the Coromandel Peninsula met in February to consider having associations work together. As a result 13 associations agreed to support the alliance concept.
• A March 21 meeting was attended by the Thames-Coromandel District mayor and eight councillors. As a result, representatives formulated matters to put before the council.
• Over the following months the mayor and the alliance both talked of a breakdown in communications: the mayor saying he was concerned with ongoing and heavily critical narrative. The alliance said the council was not listening or consulting. In addition, it said community boards were losing their effectiveness and becoming irrelevant to the existing council.
• This month mayor Len Salt released an eight-page document to the Hauraki-Coromandel Post, in which he raised concerns about the alliance.

A fight has broken out between the Thames-Coromandel District Council and an alliance of ratepayers.

It has come to a head with Thames-Coromandel mayor Len Salt and the Coromandel Peninsula Residents Alliance publicly raising concerns about each other.

The rumbling has been brewing for months following the formation of the alliance early this year.

Representatives of residents, ratepayers, and community associations across the Coromandel met in February to test the viability and capability of having associations work together on matters of district interest.

The result was that 13 associations agreed to support the alliance concept.

The group then addressed the Thames-Coromandel District Council on multiple occasions, at meetings and in submissions, subsequently saying district councillors and council staff had not been listening to communities or appropriately consulting with them.

Thames-Coromandel District mayor Len Salt.

Salt and the alliance both spoke of a breakdown in communications, with the mayor concerned by what he described as an ongoing and heavily critical narrative, which he said seemed in his opinion to be driven by a small number of individual members in some of the alliance ratepayer groups.

The alliance again reiterated its belief the council was not listening or consulting.

In addition, it said community boards were losing their effectiveness and becoming irrelevant to the existing council.

It then called for a formal response from Salt before the end of June, seeking the reintroduction of the community empowerment model covering both operational and fiscal matters, “thereby enabling community decision-making by community boards”.

The alliance said the council’s primary focus should be on core services – roading, storm, waste and drinking water, rubbish and recycling – not on social services, and the council should commit to undertake “genuine and proactive” community consultation underpinned by transparent communication on matters relating to local communities.

It also asked for the development and implementation of a sustainable economic growth policy for the Coromandel Peninsula.

In a media release dated May 28, the Residents and Ratepayers Alliance said it wanted the council to front up on a variety of community issues, wanting to see “community empowerment reinstated, something the current council and the one before it has moved away from”.

Alliance spokesman Rob Boston, is also chair of the Whangamatā Ratepayers Association. "Unfortunately, we do not believe the council listened and, in fact, is not consulting. In addition to this, we continue to see our community boards losing their effectiveness and becoming irrelevant to the existing council.”

In the statement, alliance spokesman Rob Boston, also chair of the Whangamatā Ratepayers Association, said the approach to the council was supported by 12 residents, ratepayers and community organisations across the Coromandel Peninsula.

Several alliance meetings had been held, including one with the mayor and councillors, and at the most recent meeting, the formal approach to the council was determined.

Boston said the approach had been circulated to the members of residents and ratepayers’ associations and the council’s response would be shared with them.

Boston said he believed Salt “fully understood the reach and impact such a group could achieve, having previously chaired the Whitianga Residents and Ratepayers Association”.

“We have already outlined to the council and achieved an agreement that better consultation and communication is required between the council and the residents and ratepayers groups. Unfortunately, we do not believe the council listened and, in fact, is not consulting. In addition to this, we continue to see our community boards losing their effectiveness and becoming irrelevant to the existing council.”

Whitianga Residents and Ratepayers Association chair Richard Shelford-Woodcock said things escalated following a May meeting of alliance members in Whitianga and a subsequently leaked media release.

He said the May meeting was not public and he did not know who had leaked the information.

“We were flabbergasted,” he said.

“All the alliances had not agreed on a media release of what it would look like ...”

Boston said the leak “has done significant harm to our alliance in the eyes of the council”.

Boston earlier said communications had broken down following a meeting between the alliance and the council in March.

Salt this month released an eight-page document to the Hauraki-Coromandel Post, a lengthy letter to the alliance, dated May 31, confirming his unease.

Salt said his correspondence was from him, not an official council press release.

The correspondence centred on the ongoing conversations between the council and the alliance, his concerns about the nature of those conversations and communications.

Salt, in his correspondence with the alliance released to the Hauraki-Coromandel Post, said since March, a number of things had changed the dynamic of engagement between the council and the alliance.

“They need to be addressed and I’d like to do so now in response to your letter.”

“I have been contacted by some of the ratepayer groups who are concerned that they had not approved the press release and did not agree with some of the statements ...,” Salt said in his correspondence to the alliance.

“This is an internal matter for you to sort with your members, however, it becomes a concern to me and to the council when it is used to highlight an apparent failure of the council to communicate with ratepayer associations; this is simply not true.

“There is an opportunity here for a reset, and to take the pathway back to strong, constructive engagement between the council, ratepayers associations and community groups ...

“I have no problem with having a robust debate about policies, issues, community projects and all things local government, but it needs to be based on facts and well supported by data and accurate information.”

In summarising, Salt said the storm events of 2023 had been a turning point for him.

“Throughout all this, our staff performed exceptionally well in difficult circumstances. Many were personally affected by road closures, kids out of school, families disrupted and isolated.

“Yet they still did their jobs and got the job done for our communities.

“I personally find it extremely offensive when those same staff are subjected to constant and unwarranted attacks and criticism by some of the same people who benefited directly from the support provided by the council and these dedicated staff.”

Salt said as a former chair, and as a mayoral candidate in the 2019 and 2022 elections, he initially had a hardline, insistent and often a critical style when dealing with the council.

“I have been where you are Rob [Boston]. I was the thorn in the side of Mayor Goudie and the Mercury Bay councillors. It didn’t work, so I changed my tactics.

“Working together gets more done than sitting in a corner criticising and attacking the council, which is what we seem to be facing from the alliance at the moment.

“I stress once again that my door is open, and we stand ready and willing to engage in a positive and constructive manner, so long as the discussions are based on facts, accurate information and goodwill on all sides.”