Both Waitaki Mayor Gary Kircher and deputy mayor Melanie Tavendale took Cr Jim Hopkins — first elected in 2007 — to task for trying to dominate the discussion and "stalling" council decision-making at the last Waitaki District Council meeting of the year, held on Wednesday. Cr Hopkins was the only councillor to vote against approving the council’s general bylaw and against approving the Enviroschools programme for implementation in 2018.
Before the December meeting, Cr Hopkins successfully argued for the council to seek a legal opinion on whether its bylaw was strong enough using the only the word "reduce" and not "remove" when dealing with nuisance companion cats on ratepayers’ properties.
This week, he was unsuccessful in his bid for the general bylaw to provide the council the power to remove all animals from a property as a matter of policy.
He was also the councillor who previously successfully argued councillors should see and agree to an Enviroschools programme, this week he said the level of detail council officers provided "doesn’t tell us a single thing about what they’re going to talk to kids about".
Mr Kircher cut off Cr Hopkins from speaking on both occasions.
"Patience is wearing thin around this table," Mr Kircher said.
"You are taking every opportunity [to speak] and it uses up a lot of time."
Further, Cr Tavendale said Cr Hopkins was not considering the "best use of [council] officer time".
He was trying to "back up" things that the council already had "plenty" of information on.
"It feels like we’re stalling instead of making decisions," Cr Tavendale said.
"We are going around and around in circles ... continuously saying we need to put this decision off again."
Mr Kircher did not back away from his comments after the meeting. What he had said "was a general comment based on feedback I’ve had".
"It’s really important that meetings run well and that not only everyone has an opportunity to talk but has things to talk about, and sometimes when you get some councillors dominating too much, then it just takes away the opportunity for others to talk to things in the same way. And also it can cause extra delays. We’ve got tight agendas — it’s trying to control that."
