Held on Tuesday at Portobello Bowling Club, the board meeting was otherwise fairly routine, although Mr Pope’s frustration with Dunedin City Council maintenance of the completed sections of the Peninsula Connection road-safety project was evident from the outset.
In opening , Mr Pope mused on the seeming inability of community boards to influence the council’s approach to maintenance, saying his attempts to contact the parks and reserves department and Dunedin Mayor Jules Radich about rampant weeds in the new garden beds had received no response.
"These days, community boards don’t seem to have the ability to filter through into council very well," he said.
Later in the meeting, while delivering his chairman’s report, Mr Pope returned to the topic, highlighting "the state of the horticultural plantings" along Portobello Rd, which Delta was contracted to maintain twice a year.
"If you spend $200,000-$300,000 on native plants, they you have to maintain it. If council is paying a contractor to do it, what are they doing?"
When Mr Pope said parks and recreation staff appeared to be burying their heads in the sand in the hopes the situation would go away, Mr Kellas interrupted with a point of order.
After further lively discussion among board members, it was agreed that the ultimate responsibility for the maintenance lay with the elected councillors, who should ensure adequate resources for maintenance to be carried out.
Mr Kellas raised one further issue, that of a letter to the editor Mr Pope had written to the Otago Daily Times regarding the matter. He had received negative feedback about it, and would appreciate seeing a draft of such letters in future.
Providing a verbal update on roadside vegetation, as part of discussion of the governance support officer’s report, DCC transport group manager Jeanine Benson told the board that at recent nine-year plan meetings, councillors voted for a $900,000 rise in budget for verge maintenance, and about $500,000 for road-seal maintenance.
Ms Benson said in the council’s capital funding round, she had put in a paper for funding of the unfinished section of the Peninsula Connection, which had been passed by councillors and would go into consultation.
Board member Edna Stevenson said she had taken a strong interest in the plan process and congratulated Ms Benson for her work and for getting the report "over the line".
Other topics covered in the meeting included the Otago Peninsula Community Board’s community plan priorities, calling for applications for the board’s annual scholarship, and the continuation of the board’s appearances on Otago Access Radio.
