Protest and alarm at meeting

Between protesters, passionate discussions and a fire alarm, it was all on at the Otago Regional Council’s full council meeting yesterday.

The council also managed to agree to wipe an increase in general rates, but increased targeted rates for next year.

Before the meeting, embattled chairwoman Marian Hobbs cast moves against her — in which nine councillors wrote to the chief executive seeking a meeting to replace her — as an attempt to ignore national policy statements (NPS), and vowed she would not leave her role quietly.

"If I had gone quietly, the many citizens hoping for environmental improvements in Otago would have been told in whispers that I was too old, too stressed," she wrote in her chairwoman’s report to yesterday’s meeting in Dunedin.

The report sparked a heated response from some councillors, possibly appropriately ended by a fire alarm requiring evacuation, but not before councillors had their chance to passionately deny her comments.

Cr Gretchen Robertson said she felt they were "grossly unfair".

"It painted all of Otago in a particular light ...

"We have actually worked closely with iwi and our community for many years to get to where we have got to."

The council needed to stop playing "crazy" games and start listening to the community leaders making a difference, she said.

Ms Hobbs has been under fire since a letter written by seven councillors was sent in March.

It called for a 12-month re-evaluation of the council’s policy and finances, including a review of its regional policy statement (RPS).

She has since suggested some councillors were not the environmentalists they claimed to be, and a group of nine councillors sought a meeting to vote on her being removed as chairwoman.

That will take place on July 8.

Cr Michael Laws told the meeting there was not one person around the council table who had any intent of ignoring NPS on freshwater management, and responded to a suggestion by Ms Hobbs that councillors should withdraw the March letter, by saying Ms Hobbs needed to move on and "build a bridge".

An agitated Cr Kevin Malcolm said he

had "never ever said ... anything against the progress of this council towards freshwater and a good environment. Do not ever say that ..."

Cr Alexa Forbes argued the simplest way to move on would be for councillors to withdraw the letter they signed.

Tension had begun before the start of the meeting as about a dozen protesters from the Save Our Water Group awaited councillors at the door of Philip Laing House before joining them inside the meeting room to deliver a letter seeking council action on protecting waterways.

In the end, the councillors voted to note Ms Hobbs’ report, before moving on to the 2020-21 annual plan.

They decided general rates would not increase but targeted rates would, by 3.9%, creating an overall average increase of 2.3%.

The council scrapped its proposed general rates increase of 9.1% in response to a changed economic climate resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic.

However, targeted rates rose a percentage point from what was proposed in the draft plan, from 2.9% to 3.9%.

Councillors trimmed the proposed overall average increase from 5.5% to 2.3%.

Ms Hobbs said the council’s decision to wipe the planned increase in general rates reflected financial hardship being faced in the Otago region.

Despite councillors being happy with the decision during yesterday’s meeting, Crs Bryan Scott, Michael Deaker and Kate Wilson felt the urgency of climate change was being overlooked.

"We are facing environmental tension, virus tension, economic tension and I think it is fair to say we have got some policy and governance tension," Cr Scott said.

The fire alarm was a false alarm.

molly.houseman@odt.co.nz