You be the judge.
Waitaki mayor Gary Kircher has defended the district council’s use of a $10,000 grant from the Otago Community Trust to fund its annual New Year’s Eve Party at the Gardens.
"Some people will see it as a nice to have," he said.
"For us, the actual cost and the actual rates funding is very minor in the scheme of things.
"It’s like a lot of things that we provide to make Waitaki a better place and I think if we had very few people turning up, it would be a different story."
Between 1000 and 2000 people gathered at the Oamaru Public Gardens for the event, he estimated.
Mr Kircher said the question of good value for money was moot.
"You’d have to ask all the people that were there on the night," he said.
"They’re the ones who got to enjoy basically a no-charge entry, free entertainment, free whole lot of things and had a good evening and got to bring in the New Year."
Mr Kircher said while the event was the most expensive staged by the council annually, it was "only a tiny fraction of the cost that other places would be spending on their New Year’s Eve event".
It also gave local families an option for an alternative New Year’s Eve celebration.
"It provides something that families can go to that doesn’t cost a fortune and provides for a sector of the community that can’t just head off to the pub, or they don’t want to have New Year’s Eve at a pub.
"If they’ve got young kids, we had the kids’ countdown at nine o’clock, so if they need to get away home to bed they’ve done a countdown and had a bit of a New Year’s experience."
He believed the event was a success.
"Overall, I think it’s just a good addition to the events calendar."
