by Geoffrey Churchman
The council management had made clear that they wanted to close the facility on 1 August and thanks to the management’s supporters around the council table, that was what was agreed to last Tuesday.
However, it was a split decision: 5 councilors for and 5 against:
For closure
Holborow
Buswell
Cootes
Halliday
McCann
Against closure
Compton
Randall
Handford
Elliott
Prvanov
The mayor sided with the management, making it a 6–5 decision.
Thus it means that everyone who wants to dump green waste and recycling (sorted into categories in the containers) will from 1 August have to drive to the Otaihanga facility. By our rough calculation, for those living west of Park Avenue (including the whole of the Beach Zone) it adds about 5 km to the journey each way. For those in the Central Zone it adds about 4 km each way. For those in the Hill Zone and Reikorangi it is about a net 2 km each way extra because the cessation of the Main Road to Park Avenue part is a deduction from the 3 km from the Waikanae commercial centre to the Otaihanga facility. It should be mentioned that elderly drivers can have restrictions placed on them regarding the distances from home they can drive.
The council table discussion can be heard in the YouTube video below (this starts at the applicable stage).
Eva and I decided the next day to visit the site and had a chat with the soon-to-be-redundant lady in charge of the booth. She was unwilling to state how much revenue was received from green waste dumpers and the bags of compost sold, although it can’t be insignficant.
She said that every morning she has to deal with general waste that gets dumped in the yard there overnight. We wonder where it will now be dumped? In culverts and over bridges?
What does the council now intend to do with the land? Although there was a vague mention of “options” by management such as leasing it to the Pony Club which uses some adjoining land, it seems more likely to us that it will be sold to Summerset as an extra access/egress to the officially stated one a bit further along Park Avenue. Such will get the inevitable “public excluded”, that is, secret, treatment.
Just a few corrections. The vote was Buswell abstained. Against closure, Prvanov, Elliott, Handford, Compton, Randal. For closure Holbrow, Cootes, Halliday McCann, Mayor. Then the Mayor gave himself a second vote against. Calling it his deciding vote. Thing is, in a workshop there is no deciding vote. Only in a meeting under standing orders. So it was 5/5. No change from the vote the week before when it was staying open.
As a member of the public, seated in the public gallery during the LTP workshop when this topic was discussed, several observations are made:
The reply from Bestgetyrfactsrighteh above accords with what I saw, except that following the five hands for and five against, the Chief Executive asked the mayor whether he would like to use his casting vote. The mayor then accepted the invitation from Chief Executive and used his casting vote to kill any further discussion and affirm the closing of the Waikanae Recycling (WR) on 1 June 2021 (separate from the green waste drop off). In the workshop on 27 May a show of councillor hands was 7 votes (Randall, Prvanov, McCann, Handford, Elliott, Cootes and Compton) to retain the WR and 3 votes (Holborow, Halliday and Gurunathan) for closure. On 1 June, Councillors’ Cootes and McCann changed sides making it 5 for and 5 against. One has to wonder what pressure was brought to bear on these two within the ‘informal discussion’ referred to by Councillor Cootes to defect to the opposition. My understanding is that councillor Buswell abstained due to potential public perception of a conflict of interest.
This was a workshop held in public – I would not have been there otherwise. If the Mayor (or Chair) has no procedural right to a casting vote in a workshop as Bestgetyrfactsrighteh has indicated, how come the meeting authority on procedure, aka the Chief Executive, took it upon himself to invite the mayor to make a casting vote?
It is noted that leading up to the vote Councillors Elliott, Prvanov, Handford and Waikanae Community Board Deputy Chair Margaret Stevenson-Wright made multiple cogent points for the WR to remain open. In the 27 May workshop the LTP budgeted amounts did not include any allowance for the WR to remain open. Following the 7 votes to 3 for it to stay open, an amount of around $123,000 per annum was put back in. (The full year cost for 2019/20 was said to be $111,533 – in 2016/17 it was $60,316). Formerly the cost of the WR had come out of the general districtwide rates (which I had taken as being the Kapiti wide district), but in the 1 June workshop KCDC staff advocated for the cost of the WR service to be met by a targeted rate on Waikanae ratepayers. Asked what the cost would be for a Waikanae ratepayer if the WR was to remain open, the answer was an additional $17 per annum for an average Waikanae ratepayer and that the average rates bill for Waikanae was $4,200.
Following that a prominent Waikanae resident and appointed member to the Audit and Risk Committee asserted his influence in saying that if he had an extra $17 added to his annual rates he would be ‘grumpy’. Councillor Holborow, sitting next to him, then came out confirming what seemed plain from the start, that she was against keeping the WR open because other wards do not have one. Holborow’s argument was hollow, simply based on why should you have one if we (Paekakariki) don’t – ignoring the fact that Paraparaumu has Otaihanga and that Paekakariki has a supported Surf Club and other supported projects which other wards do not have. Then CE Maxwell declared that the WR facility was only introduced because of heightened accident risk of vehicles turning right at the Otaihanga round-about prior to it having been upgraded. (One wonders where this assertion suddenly came from because Maxwell was not CE when this occurred). McCann who was sitting next to Holborow said he lived in Otaihanga. He had not realised the WR was only there for road safety reasons – there was nothing unsafe about Otaihanga Road or the round-about adding a quip that if fragile Waikanae people can fill trailers there would be no issue using the old State highway and the Otaihanga round-about. Explanation for Cootes’ change of position is murky – seemingly Otaki does have a non-Council funded facility. As usual Cootes asks lots of questions but his reasons for why WR should close are far from clear.
At the end of the day there was a lack of transparency around reasons given for the imminent WR closure. The CE and others including the mayor repeated assertions that the WR was not efficient or effective. The CE even included a diminishing quip that it would be cheaper to hire limousines than keep the WR open. Facts in support of this are thin. In considering the difference between ‘efficiency and effectiveness’ – a point of difference is that ‘effectiveness’ encompasses doing the right things.
The CE’s view of efficiency and effectiveness appears solely based on whether the council pays for something or not. It does not matter if there is great inefficiency in having to transport everything into and out of Otaihanga so long as Council does not pay.
The staff recommendation was apparently based on a survey of 87 people who used the facility. Councillor Prvanov asked when was the survey done – this was not able to be answered in the workshop. Holborow stated that Raumati had the older demographic, not Waikanae, but councillor Compton challenged this and referred to recent statistics showing that Waikanae did. Apparently 36% of those surveyed did not have kerbside recycling. The survey separated holiday home owners from permanent residents (even though they paid the same in rates) and Holborow said they could take their recycling back to Wellington and dispose of it there. Council information in support of the inefficiency had apparently stated that for residents in Reikorangi and at the end of Huia Street it was less distance to go to Otaihanga than to the WR. This was factually incorrect. Bold assertions undermined by minimal verifiable fact leave one with little confidence in the decision rammed through. Waikanae residents spoken to since the decision have been mostly unaware of the imminent closure of the WR facility.
It does does appear to be the case that the cost of transporting recycled materials from WR to Otaihanga has increased 5.4 times in three years. To parrot the CE’s quoting of Mike Cardiff, ‘nothing stays the same’, when cost increases of this magnitude arise there should be a far more thorough investigation of the whole cycle efficiency regardless of whether council pays or not. Within that whole view there are likely to be potential solutions that could reduce the $17 pa cost to keep the WR open. As for my own ‘inefficiency’ I know it would cost me far more in fuel than $17 pa to go to Otaihanga (including increased safety risk) than it would to go the WR facility in Park Avenue.
Council should conduct a robust survey, at Council expense, to determine the views of the ratepayers of Waikanae.
A defining characteristic of effectiveness is indeed it’s inclusion of ‘Doing the right thing/s’. The excellent publication ‘Securing Our Future’ and its accompanying feedback form include the following key community outcomes to contribute to our community’s wellbeing:
* Our communities are resilient, safe, healthy, thriving and connected. Everyone has a sense of belonging and can access the resources that they need.
* Our natural environment is restored and ehanced as we transition to a low-carbon future.
The planned closure flies in the face of each of these outcomes.
Doing the right things demands courage of all parties to this key decision.
In the words of Johan Wolfgang von Goethe:
‘Wealth lost
something lost,
Honour lost,
something lost,
Courage lost,
all lost.
AN UPDATE: Local knowledge is a powerful tool. Due to some of the comments on social media and in private generated by my facebook post about the proposed closure of this facility. I ask if anyone has heard of an alternative proposed future use for the site of this recycling centre, can you please get in touch with the details to help assist the decision makers.
You can get in touch with me either by messenger or by email to jackie.elliott@kapiticoast.govt.nz or phone/text on 0210452762.
This would be much appreciated. Thank you Districtwide Cr Jackie Elliott.
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