At a Waitaki District Council meeting yesterday, the council stopped short of creating council controlled organisations (CCO) for an Economic Development Agency and the Oamaru Blue Penguin Colony.
After a long discussion, the council asked council staff for more information about the agency, how to stage the implementation of it and to investigate a funding partnership for it.
The council also decided it would bring the Oamaru Blue Penguin Colony under the control of the council for the short term.
Earlier in the meeting it had passed a motion to say the council would never sell the colony.
Council staff had proposed the blue penguin colony be put into a CCO and then for it to investigate bringing in a partner to help it grow.
The colony is at present under the watch of Tourism Waitaki but under the new proposal, Tourism Waitaki would be phased out and replaced by the agency.
Waitaki Mayor Gary Kircher told the meeting he wanted to find out the funding available for a partnership for the new Economic Development Agency.
Councillors had raised doubts about the amount of money the council was putting into the new agency and what would be its return. The council has set up a economic development strategy which was different from Tourism Waitaki’s focus, and touched more parts of the economy.
Cr John McCone said he was not comfortable with the plan to turn the agency into a CCO. He did not know where ratepayers funds’ would be going and wanted more details.
Cr Jim Hopkins said the council was starting to move from governance to operational matters. The agency was simply following what the council had come up with in its strategy and he was happy to progress to an agency.
He agreed to support the motion of a further report to the council about the shape of the agency and how the funding would come about.
Council chief executive Alex Parmley said the council had not approached any group to be a partner.
The proposal had been not been to take a partner but to simply investigate this option. It should not be assumed it would be a commercial organisation.
Mr Kircher said the council wanted to be as open as possible about the partnership proposal. Nearly 70% of submissions to the council’s annual plan had been against the partnership idea.
