KEY POINTS:
A move to take over the work of the Whangarei-based regional council within the Far North district has created local body ripples.
The Far North District Council wants to become a unitary authority, only the second in New Zealand behind Gisborne, by assuming the functions of both a district and regional council.
It says it would combine the responsibilities of both councils in the Far North to eliminate an unnecessary layer of local government and simplify a structure that is expensive, confusing and hard to understand.
Northland Regional Council chairman Mark Farnsworth is unhappy that the Far North council has signalled its move through the media.
"They haven't said a word to us about it," he said.
Far North Mayor Wayne Brown is backed by a council resolution supporting the proposal to become a unitary authority, with an accompanying intention to assess and discuss the plan with other Northland local bodies and Far North communities.
He accuses the Northland Regional Council of promoting itself as the region's environmental watchdog while it spends ratepayers' money on unrelated matters like buying land for a 16km rail corridor south of Whangarei to Marsden Pt port and investing $13 million in a Whangarei events centre stadium.
This is not core business for the regional council, Mr Brown believes.
"We need catchment management, investment in flood protection work for flood-prone Kaeo and work to stop State Highway 10 flooding in heavy rain, not train sets and stadiums."
He said it was extraordinary that the regional council is proposing two new rates this year - a targeted infrastructure rate and a Kaeo River rate - which amounted to separate rates for its core business.
The Far North District Council is also being charged about $500,000 in consent fees by the regional council for a proposed new Kerikeri sewage treatment scheme and Mr Brown says the district council must pay this cost before work can start on the project.
"We have a fragile rating base because of large tracts of non-rate paying Crown-owned land and multiple-owned Maori land.
"Forking out $500,000 in consent fees to an environmental agency to meet the cost of an environmentally beneficial project is evidence of a contradictory process and is a cost the Far North can ill afford."
Mr Farnsworth says securing land for the Oakleigh-to-Marsden Pt rail corridor would be "net cost neutral".
"We're taking a strategic move to secure that corridor and I would have thought we'd be applauded for that."
Only $5 out of the council's $10 recreational facility rate levied in the Far North goes to the proposed stadium in Whangarei which would have benefits throughout the region.
When it came to flood control work, the council could always do more, but someone always had to pay, Mr Farnsworth said.
The regional council had taken over the Awanui flood control scheme (just north of Kaitaia) because the district council had made no progress.
Mr Farnsworth said the way local body services were delivered should always be reviewed but changes should not be made without analysis and "solutions" simply imposed.
Both councils have now agreed to meet to discuss the issues involved.
