The councillors couldn't decide how to distribute the town centre development fund. Photo/John Borren, Sun Media
Western Bay of Plenty councillors have quarrelled over how to allocate the district’s town centre development fund.
The disagreements emerged at the Western Bay of Plenty District Council Project and Monitoring Committee meeting on Wednesday.
Committee chairman Don Thwaites said it was the “worst display of behaviour by a bunch of councillors elected to govern a $150m budget”.
”Everyone suddenly turned on their own little patch and what they got out of it, which I think is not good,” he said.
The councillors were trying to decide how to allocate the $226,160 fund between the four town centres of Te Puke, Waihī Beach, Katikati and Ōmokoroa.
Each property in the district pays $10 towards the fund as part of the uniform annual general charge in their rates.
The fund was started 16 years ago and previously each town would receive the full amount for a four-year period to enable town centre development and upgrades.
Councillors were asked how to reallocate the fund now the four-year cycles had ended, but they couldn’t agree after 50 minutes of discussion.
Some of the councillors argued it was not fair that all properties paid the rate but not everyone used the town centres.
Councillor Rodney Joyce said the fund was a “poorly targeted system”.
”People from Te Puna don’t look to Ōmokoroa to go shopping. The people at the Kaimais, they don’t get anything from this, Maketu gets nothing from this.”
Deputy mayor John Scrimgeour, councillors Allan Sole and Grant Dally agreed not everyone benefited from the rate.
Scrimgeour said: “If you take Te Puke people, like myself, our $10 gets spread all around the district and doesn’t go to the town that I support and value. I still don’t think it’s fair.”
Dally said consideration needed to be given to the smaller centres like Maketu and Paengaroa.
Joyce moved to stop collecting the fund and not spend the money that had already been collected for the 2022/23 financial year.
”We know it’s not a good system and we want to change it but we’re going to spend the money anyway. How is that good governance?” questioned Joyce.
He was supported by councillor Margaret Murray-Benge.
”If this money can save our ratepayers in any way this term, I think it’s important that we do so.”
Denyer spoke against stopping the payment, labelling it “making rating decisions on the hoof”.
”Community boards will be ropable if they think you’re accumulating this money and then suddenly we take it away. This is just bad decision-making.”
Joyce’s motion was voted down.
Thwaites moved the council allocate the funding proportionally as proposed by the council staff as a “one-off” then refer the fund to the long-term plan for review next year.
The staff recommended the fund be allocated proportionally based on the number of properties in each of the four community board areas.
Waihī Beach would receive $50,037, Katikati $74,172, Ōmokoroa $37,133 and Te Puke $64,818.Mayor James Denyer supported Thwaite’s motion.
“It’s the best thing to do for now and I look forward to discussion over the next year or so about how we might tweak this [and] change it,” he said.
Sole spoke against it: “I feel we’ve lost the whole principle of what this is designed for.”
”It’s designed to help the communities develop better communities. To give them a decent dollop of money so they could do something with it.
”Now $50,000, for instance, barely buys you a motor car these days and that’s what we’re going to get into Waihī Beach.
”I just feel that Waihī beach gets the dirty end of a stick again.”
Councillor Murray Grainger was also against the motion.
”I feel it’s adhockery, numbers just plucked out of the air and it has no relevance.
”We need to think about we’ve rated this money for town centre development and those numbers are not going to develop anything anywhere of significance for anybody.”
Thwaites acknowledged the motion wasn’t “perfect”.
He said he proposed the one-off allocation to move the council forward in the hope it would be a five-minute exercise.
”It’s turned into a lot bigger than that.”
The motion was voted down and the issue would now be raised at a future meeting.
