Company Secretary, Neil R Gladden, Software Escrow Guardians Ltd, P O Box 94, Shortland Street, Auckland 1140 - or email neil.gladden@SoftwareEscrow Guardians.com.
In the meantime I have included the last unaudited financial statement I received, a copy of which I provided to Mr Hathaway.
The other documents I delivered, which was prior to his letter first being published, related to the association and the company because Mr Hathaway had discussed the need to resurrect the association.
Many of those documents related to that and all documents are a matter of public record, ie no disclosure of private information has occurred.
Mr Hathaway's query about the "cartoon history of NZ" is also easily answered; he need only have looked at the date of it, as it's a depiction of how long leaseholds have been a problem in NZ - since the mid-1800s.
The fact is, leaseholder efforts of the late 1990s and early 2000s, firstly through the Napier Leaseholders' Association Inc and then the Napier Leaseholders' Mutual Benefit Company Ltd, came to nought as the result of the divide-and-rule negotiating tactics of the Hawke's Bay Regional Council, which exhausted the energy and funds of both organisations and individual leaseholders.
After achieving a legislation change and having all the boxes ticked to proceed to the "bulk freeholding" that more than half of HBRC leaseholders, and some NCC leaseholders, signed up for, the regional council offered an "extra" 5 per cent discount to freehold (which some people did take up) and also critically altered the freeholding methodology to the current "Cashflow Matching Method" - a convoluted financial equation which includes factoring in the "lost rent" of the next 50 years.
Ultimately, after all our efforts, the regional council stymied the "bulk freeholding deal" and the Napier City Council was conspicuous by its absence, preferring instead to follow the regional council's lead and ultimately do nothing.
As history has proven, the leasehold problem has not gone away and the bandages that the HBRC has applied over the years have never resolved the problem.
Had the council been more attentive to both leaseholders' organisations, which had the approval of the Minister of Local Government at the time, it could have resolved its leasehold portfolio issues a decade ago and all ratepayers would also have gained far better returns and community benefits.
The HBRC's preferred position now is closer to that which the leaseholder organisations tried to negotiate back then and the current policy inducement for residential leaseholders of a 17.5 per cent discount until mid-2012 will bring much the same result; that is, some will take up the offer to freehold but many will remain stuck and at the mercy of a HBRC which is now considering selling off the rental income it provides.
Mr Hathaway would do better to play the ball, not the person, on this pressing issue. His letter failed to mention that when I dropped off the above information I couldn't actually talk properly as my face was swollen from a wisdom tooth extraction, complete with stitches and continuing numbness.
As I couldn't talk without difficulty and pain, I gave him a hand-written letter which apologised for taking so long to provide the information as I'd had to shift house twice due to my personal security being compromised.
I also identified to him that one of those security events was a leaseholder, randomly on a Sunday afternoon because he simply saw I was home and wanted to vent about an information request he'd made to the NCC in 2003.
Talk about "shoot the messenger"!Michelle PykeNapier city councillor
NCC leaseholder for 18 yrsFormer secretary, Napier Leaseholders' Assn IncFormer director, Napier Leaseholders' Mutual Benefit Co Ltd
