On Tuesday last week, the council decided to undertake a consultation on the soon-to-be-built Te Unua Museum of Southland, which could exceed its budget by as much as $19.5 million.
The public will be asked to submit on several options, including foregoing Green Star sustainability accreditation, delaying a carpark and reducing the “experience”.
Councillor Ian Pottinger was a dissenting voice at the meeting, questioning if the council was undertaking a proper consultation.
He expressed concern that options provided by staff for potential consultation were dropped, including an option to pause the project while its scope and brief were revisited.
“The option to consult properly, I believe, is an absolute necessity,” Pottinger told those gathered.
The concerns received pushback from Mayor Nobby Clark who said the council was still working within the Local Government Act.
Clark said a potential judicial review on the matter would require someone having “deep pockets”, but conceded it would create big delays for the project.
Meanwhile, councillor Lesley Soper said consulting on whether to pause the project would make a “nonsense” of the consultation, because the very act of consulting would pause the project.
Pottinger was not satisfied, later telling Local Democracy Reporting that elected members were ignoring how staff wanted the consultation to be undertaken because of their own desire to start building.
“What they’ve done is work their way around the consultation to just consult on Green Star and the carpark - which are insignificant to whether you start building or not.
"When you have a blowout and you go and consult, it shouldn’t just continue and make the public’s effort of consultation worthless, should it?”
Pottinger was also vocal towards the end of the meeting about the fact the museum appeared to be on budget as recently as June this year, only for a potential overspend later to be revealed.
According to the council report, the project team stress tested all aspects of the project since April, and found an “on budget” option was not available.
“I’m more p****d off about how we got here - not that its over budget - and we could have been explained that all the way through.”
Options recommended by council staff for consultation ranged from $6.6 million to $19.5 million in expected maximum costs.
That included $6.6 million of external funding the council was struggling to secure but had agreed to underwrite.
The upcoming public consultation will provide four options: retain the status quo, remove Green Star accreditation, remove Green Star accreditation and delay the carpark, and reduce the digital/static ratio of 70:30 in the experience alongside the third option.
A group of councillors who spoke at the meeting last Tuesday were in favour of pushing ahead with the project, saying the community had given a clear mandate.
The council was approached for comment, but did not respond by deadline.
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air
