The Council decided, on an invalid casting vote by Gurunathan to shut the Waikanae green recycling station. Mr Vickerman’s article provides convincing evidence of the continuing mis-use and abuse of legal processes. The vote to close the Waikanae recycling facility appears to have been totally invalid for two reasons and therefore it was not binding.
The Ombudsman in 2013 (C5807) made a ruling on Workshop meetings. He held that at workshops councils cannot pass resolutions as this contravenes the Local Government Official Meetings and Information Act.
The first illegal action. The mayor tried to illegally squirm around the Act by calling it a “straw vote”. Voting on anything is precluded by the rules governing ‘Workshops”.
The second legal failure. Gurunathan made a casting at this Workshop, when the councillors were split 5-5. The Mayor had no legal powers to make such a vote but that did not bother him.
The people of Waikanae can seek legal redress, but KCDC will be resting, assured that apathy and “she’ll be right mate” will save the Mayor, Deputy Mayor Holborrow and the CEO’s skins. No-one will dare take such a step.
This is democracy and the Gurunathan openness and transparency of Kapiti 2021.
Ok, so this being the case, how do we go about calling them to task over this? What needs to happen now? Someone must know the best channel to go down to bring this to the fore before the final vote on 24th June! Somebody help please as I don’t want to see apathy win over proper process and procedure.
If Maxwell/Mallon think they have the numbers they will probably do things properly and this action could be futile. You need to lobby those who changed their minds – McCann and Cootes – to change them back again.
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