Back of the Agenda: Nelson City Council roundup March 8-12

Friday, 12 March 2021

What looked to be a pedestrian week, with a short meeting of the city council and a longer one for the regional sewerage business unit, was disrupted by protests and alleged assaults.

What looked to be a fairly by-the-books week at the Nelson City Council changed course after an Extinction Rebellion protest about glyphosate escalated into an alleged assault.

The protest on Thursday morning – which saw Councillor Tim Skinner accused of shouldering a woman protester chained to a door – delayed the start of the council meeting by an hour.

First up on the agenda was a public submission calling for better council communication, particularly for public consultation on major projects, by the Tāhunanui Business and Citizens Association and Tāhunanui school principal Barbara Bowen.

Then the meeting broke for a morning tea meet-and-greet with the Nelson City Youth Council members, many of them first-timers.

* Raft of Nelson projects completed in time for Christmas break

* Historic turtle mysteriously migrates from Nelson playground to Marlborough

This week Civid House hosted two meetings – one of the full city council, and one of the Nelson Regional Sewerage Business Unit.

Then it was down to the relatively dull business of the day: the elected members' reimbursement and expenses policy, and the elected member travel and training budget and criteria.

The council voted to receive, approve and submit the reimbursement and expenses policy to the remuneration authority, the independent body set up by Parliament to determine the remuneration (pay) for public servants such as local government representatives, members of parliament, and judges.

Nelson council had to update its remuneration after it re-organised its committee structures last year.

Councillors are entitled to allowances of up to $6,000 per year per child for childcare incurred as part of the job, and to travel and training expenses of up to $5,000 for the entire triennium for expenses relating to council work.

Councillor Gaile Noonan wanted an amendment saying councillors had to provide reports on ratepayer-funded training in the interest of council-to-public transparency, but as the wording currently allows for such reports to be made it was not changed.

The council then went into public excluded to discuss the community housing settlement and roading properties.

The settlement was barred to the public “to enable the local authority to carry on, without prejudice or disadvantage, negotiations”.

Nelson City Council announced last year that it would be selling its community housing to Kāinga Ora (formerly Housing New Zealand) and setting up a housing reserve fund. It was announced at the time that the transfer of ownership would occur in February of this year.

The roading properties discussion was behind closed doors “to protect the privacy of natural persons” and “enable the local authority to carry out, without prejudice or disadvantage, commercial activities”.

Later on Thursday evening, council held a community meeting at Nelson Intermediate School to discuss the next phase of their Innovating Streets programme at Kawai, Tipahi and Tukuka Streets in Nelson South.

On Friday the Regional Sewerage Business Unit – which comprises council members from both Nelson and Tasman – met in Nelson to discuss the latest quarterly report (to December 31).

While most of the discussion centred around infrastructure issues and the approval the business plan and activity management plan, NRSBU chairman and Tasman District councillor Kit Maling announced that iwi representative Frank Hippolite had resigned his position as too much time was being taken up with other commitments.

Maling said it was important the NRSBU included an iwi perspective, and they were hoping to get a new appointment from iwi as soon as possible.

Back of the Agenda is a weekly round-up of the goings-on at the Nelson City Council. Every week at council's various meetings, committees and subcommittees, public submissions are made, reports are presented, and proposals voted on. There’s not always enough time or room in the paper to cover them all – but with this column we will try and give some air to the everyday decisions and discussions made around the council table.