Letters to the Editor

Craig Jepson is a member  of the MRRA, yet he launched a vitriolic attack against it in your  March 11 issue. It is difficult to ascertain what brought this on. He certainly has not raised any of these matters  with me or anyone else on the MRRA executive. It is customary,  in the first instance, to take your complaint  to the people you have a problem with, but it’s a free country I suppose.

He tried to make out that he was prevented   from   being   successful in his quest to be elected to the executive because  of something I did. Would that I had such power over people! I think  the speech he made in support of his own candidacy, taking a swing at quite a lot of people who others hold in high regard, did little for his  aspirations  to high  office. But his opinion of the MRRA leaves me perplexed as to why on earth  he would ever seek to be part of it.

He implies  that there was something  underhand about the way the votes were counted. It was a secret ballot, and  I asked Joanna  Roberts, as someone  who is widely respected and  independent of the  MRRA, to supervise  the  ballot. She  agreed to do this, chose her own returning officers and collected the votes and counted  them  without anyone from the past or new executive having anything to do with it.

She was given all the proxy votes that  had  been  received,  several  of them for Messrs Jepson and Larsen, and she declared a result.  After the meeting I discovered one further proxy vote that had been sent to the wrong  email  address,  and  I  called Joanna  and  asked  her  if  it  would
change  the  outcome.  She  told  me that  it  would  not.  In  hindsight   I should have asked her to release the overall  counts,  but  I  didn’t  at  the time, and when I asked her later she told me “I was asked to conduct a secret ballot and I did just that, and I disposed of the ballot papers.” None of the candidates will ever know how near, or how far, they came to being on the MRRA executive.

Then Mr Jepson launches an ad hominem attack against two hard-working and dedicated  members of the MRRA executive: Helen Curreen and Martina Tschirky.

The MRRA has consistently  over many years worked for better environmental outcomes  than  the KDC deems appropriate. The MRRA has a history of action (since 2007) on what is now Mr de Baugh’s land (Stylish Homes) above the  estuary  on  Molesworth  Drive. With an earlier owner the consents relating to this land were question- able to say the least.

The MRRA met twice with KDC, once with the CEO to give him  the background to our concerns – in particular public access and the smelly water from the underlying swamp above  the  site.  We  then  met  with the regulatory manager  and walked the  area  with  representatives   from the Riparian Planting Group and Tracks Trust. We were disturbed  to note that the smelly water was now drained  straight  down  the  hill in  a new drain and going directly into the tide  rather  than  going  into  a large area of council-owned  foreshore  reserve on  the  adjacent  lot. The wetland in the reserve has been significantly drained by this action.

To  put  the  record  straight,   Mr de  Baugh’s   application   attempted to deny that this land was foreshore and  he said that  he shouldn’t  have to give up a 20m foreshore  reserve. While he did indicate a willingness to allow public access across the land we have learned to be wary of these undertakings, which have a tendency to become brain fade matters down the track.

This land is the beginning  of the round-the-harbour walkway long wanted by the residents  and ratepayers of the district. Some council documentation even calls it “gateway”. A 20m foreshore reserve on subdivision is the norm  everywhere else in NZ, and should certainly be expected in such a high profile and vital site. So what we have is a foreshore strip remaining in private ownership with Mr  de  Baugh  illegally pushing   fill into the costal marine  area to create what he will magnanimously claim is public access.

Mr de Baugh even appealed the original consent, and the eventual consent  we are living with does no- body  any  credit  whatsoever.   This land should be a 20m reserve in council ownership for community recreation  and Mr de Baugh should be dealing with his storm water and drainage problems on his own land.

Typically, in the past, the MRRA would struggle to assemble a committee  each year, and  would report on walkways and  weed control  and just the kind of issue related above. The MRRA is happy to (and does) include and represent developers who have the best interests  of the com- munity at heart. People have realised at long last that local government  is neither  benign  nor for the locals. It is that realisation, growing daily, that accounts for the huge upsurge in membership of the MRRA. Pro rata the MRRA is by far the biggest ratepayers organisation  in the country.
Mr Jepson  and some  others  like to go about town spreading  the fantasy that  the  MRRA is a bunch  of warring factions. He even has the temerity  to identify Martina  Tschirky and  Helen  Curreen  as  a “faction”. The MRRA executive is a group  of people  with  widely differing  experiences,  skills, and  aspirations,  but they coalesce around  a set of principles and  ideals that  are focused  on the wellbeing of our community and its  environment.  Nothing   that  we do is for personal  gain. That might be something that Mr Jepson would struggle with. Maybe it is Mr Jepson that is the “faction”. He is clearly out of step with the MRRA membership (which is slightly more  than  double his estimate) and the community.

Bruce Rogan
Mangawhai
 
 
Developer has rights
I wrote in the last issue of the Focus regards the vexatious opposition of members of the Mangawhai Ratepayers and Residents Association towards other ratepayers’ developments. No doubt this latest issue will be full of indignant howls from the rowdy few.

Just to score an own goal in the last issue Martina Tschirky prints another  fairy tale regarding former councilor Jonathan Larson’s application to subdivide. She says the developer isn’t happy and is appealing at ratepayer expense to the environment court.

First, surely even Ms Tschirky knows the ratepayer will only pay if the  decision  is in favor of Mr. Larson.  Second,  Mr. Larson  is appealing because of the actions of Ms Tschirky and co using  MRRA funded money. Third, fact is Mr. Larson – without  appeal  and  as of right  – can build 10m high 200 square  metre silver barns on all the sites on the ridgeline.  The houses  under  appeal are designed  to be virtually invisible with reflectance values 30 percent or less and designed  to fit behind  covenanted bush line.

It beggars belief that there is any objection at all when if one looks at what Mr. Larson can do as of right compared to what he has applied for the better environmental result is in his  application.  The objectors  bleat on about responsible development. How about some responsible objection without using ratepayer’s monies.

Craig Jepson
Mangawhai
 
Connection  fee response
Kaipara  District  Council  would like to respond to Mr Galt’s comments regarding the wastewater charges for the properties within the Anchorage Subdivision (Mangawhai Focus, 11 March).  It is unfortunate that Mr Galt has been led to believe that a payment towards his wastewater connection  fee had already been paid by the developer. It hasn’t as the developer was not  required  to  make  such  a  payment.   The  developer has  paid  reserve contributions which  are used to assist with the development  of reserves as part of the conditions of his resource consent. These are quite different from development contributions which are now required for new properties connecting to the wastewater scheme.

Steve Ruru
Chief Executive
Kaipara District Council
 

Mystery tractor
A past  owner  of  the mystery  tractor  featured in the March 11 Focus alongside a Mangawhai mine disposal team has been identified as Roy King’s old machine  by Gerta  de  Boer  and  her son John. 

According  to  John  it is one of two ancient Farmall MM Tractors that were  left  on   the   farm by Roy King when they bought  the farm from him.

There is no chance of entering   either  of  them in the planned Tractor Rally at the Domain  on April 14 according  to John as their rusting remains were traded in as scrap years ago.

Big Dig veterans and others who have ancient, or  unique   modern   tractors   have  been   invited by the  Mangawhai  Historical   Society   to  take part   in   the   rally  next month and Mangawhai Beach School is seeking the  loan  of an  old  tractor which a group of students  plan  to clean  up and  enter.  Anyone  with a tractor to spare should contact the school.

Roy Vaughan
Mangawhai
 
Council borrowings
Commissioner    Robertson  commented, I presume accurately quoted,  in  your  recent  item on the Kaipara District Council  joining  the  Local Government    Funding  Agency (LGFA) that “KDC seeks to minimise the costs of its external borrowing so that we can keep rates down.”

KDC has been ranked –  by the  respected  analyst Larry Mitchell in his comprehensive 2013 NZ Council Ranked League Table – the 67th and last placed  council  in  NZ with the comments ‘in serious financial difficulties and high debt’.

He is not alone in his concern  that KDC may well not be a going concern and in danger of not being able to meet their debt obligations. You would therefore be justified in surmising that KDC may well be at the head  of  the  list  should any  NZ  council  default on being able to pay back borrowings from the LGFA .

But  no  problem   for the LGFA for as Robertson himself  says in your article: “In the unlikely event that a local authority did default, the LGFA would  immediately  be able to appoint a receiver and assess a special rate against  all ratepayers in the defaulting local authority’s district.”

Given  the  perilous state   of  KDC  finances I  again  suggest   it  may not be that  unlikely that a default  by KDC could happen.  In light of these facts is commissioner Robertson acting in the best interests of Kaipara’s ratepayers, by commit- ting us, the ratepayers, to join this scheme? Or is it just another example of should (or when) those charged with looking after the ratepayer interest stuff up financially, the unsuspecting ratepayers, who were unable to have a say in joining such a scheme, are charged with paying up yet again with a ‘special’ rate?

You really have to question whose interests these  commissioners we have had forced upon us are looking after?
 
Gary Colhoun
Mangawhai

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