Your Questions Answered - Common sense must prevail

 

Justice Heath delivered his final decision on July 25 in the case of the Judicial Review taken by the Mangawhai Ratepayers and Residents Association (MRRA) against the Kaipara District Council.

In his rulings, Justice Heath denied the MRRA all but one of the remedies they sought. He turned down the MRRA requests for Council to:

* Pay public law compensation to MRRA.

* Pay for Mr Clive Boonham’s time spent on the case for MRRA.

* Return millions of dollars of rates set from 2006 to 2013 to ratepayers.

* Be prevented from using rates to service Council debt.

* Be injuncted (prevented) from collecting outstanding rates while MRRA takes its case to the Court of Appeal.

The one request granted to the MRRA by Justice Heath was for Council to pay some of its legal costs. The amount is yet to be quantified but will be a significant sum.

Commissioners hope that common sense will now prevail, and that the executive of the MRRA will withdraw its appeal against the rulings of the High Court. No one has won from all this litigation, and no one will win from more attempts to extend this case.

The cost to Council, and thus ultimately ratepayers, arising from the action taken by the MRRA, is massive. The costs are in three large chunks:

Legal and Court costs. By the time Council pays for some of MRRA’s legal fees, these will likely top $650,000.

Council staff costs. I estimate that these are in the order of $250,000, being a substantial portion of the Chief Executive’s time, and additional senior management and Commissioners’ time over the last year or so.

Costs of servicing debt. While this action hangs over us, the Council is paying a premium for its debt. We estimate this to be close to one percent of debt servicing costs, perhaps as much as $800,000 per year.

This adds up to $1.7 million, money and resources that would have been much better focused on the maintenance of roads, reserves and other Council services.

There are those supporting the MRRA legal action who are obsessed with this “battle”. They want Council to be bankrupted. They continue to advocate the non-payment of rates, and have not paid any rates for several years. This is simply not fair.

When Justice Heath was considering his views on a request by MRRA for an injunction, he noted the inequity that would arise should he grant it. He stated:

“I also have concerns about the inequities that would arise between those ratepayers who have withheld payment of historical rates to date and those who have paid them.”

He was right to be concerned.

No one can change history. We know Council performed poorly. We know it did not comply with the law. Our collective responsibility today is to get the Council back on track. We have had policy makers and law makers help us with this task, and now we have had High Court oversight.

Government reviewed Kaipara’s history, and appointed Commissioners in 2012 to take over Kaipara’s governance for three years.

Parliamentarians supported legislation in Parliament in 2013 to deal with some poor Council decision-making around rating.

The High Court considered the case brought by those opposed to what the Government did, what Parliament did, and what the Commissioners are doing, and essentially confirmed that what we have all done passes legal tests.

We respectfully ask those who are on the Executive of the MRRA to withdraw their appeal. The High Court has ruled. Let’s accept its findings.

There is plenty to do in Mangawhai to support community development. That is where ratepayer monies should be invested.

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