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23 February 2006

MAYOR'S E-COLUMN

WOW! UPDATE 2006

I haven’t written an e-column for a number of weeks for one simple reason … j-u-s-t t-o-o b-u-s-y. This is not to imply that busy-ness has finished – I wish.

No, it’s just that if I don’t write one now, the next will be gargantuan.

So where to start?

With An Orgy

Yes, with an orgy. Of congratulation and mutual back-slapping. The trilogy of summer events worked outstandingly well in lifting Wanganui’s profile – and generally lifting the mood of the district.

I make no apology for my hands-on approach – there are very few marketers or promoters in Wanganui and those skills are generally in short supply in any province.

So Council needed to take a leadership role and the Mayor’s Office was at the forefront of that role. So – in an indirect way – were you. It was your money we spent and in the following ways;

• essentially underwrote the Jimmy Barnes Boxing Day Concert (it made $23,500 net profit for the Cooks Gardens Trust Board);
• contributed $150,000 towards the ‘River Queen’ premiere;
• paid $20,000 (out of the economic development budget) for the printing & regional distribution of the ‘Trilogy’ flier;
• contributed staff time towards the planning, marketing & organisation of the inaugural Mayoral Mile. I personally contributed $20,000.

And the results??

In one word … stunning! All three events were enormously successful because we had equal measures of Council backing, hard work by the organizers and luck. The latter attends any successful event but Wanganui had it in spades.

The highlight of this summer? For me, Nick Willis powering past Olympic medalist Craig Mottram in the home straight to win, beat Peter Snell’s world mile record time and set a new Cooks Gardens record. Special, special stuff.

Yeah, but I witnessed hundreds of people do their own PBs that day – it was simply inspiring.

Now it is time to push on. If I can use a journey analogy … we’ve got in the car and rounded the first corner. There is still a long, long way to go.

Wanganui Inc and Council must lift their game further – particularly the former. They are unproven still and Council has given event marketing in Wanganui an enormous boost. It is now their chance to prove themselves and the $240,000 investment council has made to their organisation ($42,000 director’s fees & $200,000 to fund Wanganui-based events).

By-Election/Referendum ‘06

It’s great to have Philippa Baker-Hogan and Alan Taylor on board. Both Vision candidates won comfortably and both were sworn in at Monday’s first full council meeting for the 2006 year.

It was a nondescript by-election campaign with my team running a poor campaign and other candidates dwelling too much on the negative. Electors aren’t interested in what candidates oppose – they want to know what they’ll do if they get elected.

That said, this was the strongest field that Wanganui has seen in years. A Halberg Award winner, an ex-MP, an ex-National party candidate, a former district councilor, a former chair of the Chamber of Commerce … that sort of line-up in 2004 might have made for different results.

All candidates should be congratulated for standing and all those not elected would be feeling understandably disappointed. One of the quirky aspects of elections is that everyone believes they will win. They wouldn’t stand otherwise.

One candidate, I understand, even had the Commercial Club booked out for their inevitable success on the Saturday night. And it was neither Philippa nor Alan – now that is confidence!

BERL Report – Wanganui No.3 in the country

Then there was the BERL Report which places Wanganui as the third best performing economy (out of 71) in the country.

That’s gobsmacking stuff. We were 56th twelve months previously – now we’re third! If we were an athlete, Wanganui would be swabbed by performance enhancing drugs.

But it is a result we can all share in – more jobs, lower unemployment, higher house prices and yet the lowest rates increase in the country. Not bad, eh?

LTCCP 2006-2016

As forewarned on many occasions, this is time for Council to front up to the fact that we’ve been living beyond our means. Our financial manager Julian Harkness called it “financial alcoholism” just before Christmas – and he’s right.

In addition, I have been reminding senior council managers that simply increasing rates is not acceptable. We continue to pay amongst the highest real rates in the country (defined as the rates v property valuation ratio) - the suggested increase of 7% could only further disadvantage an already overburdened populace.

There is something else to remember in all this discussion too. The average ratepayer in Wanganui earns considerably under the average New Zealand income. Those petitioning for higher rates invariably earn well in excess of that NZ average.

Which is why Council – unanimously – resolved to set a draft inflation rate increase of around 3% - the rate of inflation. That, in turn, means we must reduce council services and/or assets. Quite how we do that, has been the object behind our LTCCP workshops of the past two-three weeks.

Yet again though, this council is paying for the poor planning of its predecessor. There were either inadequate or no asset management plans put in place in 2003. Thus their projected debt peak of $45 million – predicated on unrealistic spending assumptions and utterly unrealistic forestry investment income.

Today that sum is at around $65 million – at the very limits of affordability.

Council Working Well

That said, Council is working together well in refining the options and making the right decisions.

I have established two new committees – a specialist Sport & Recreation committee with Cr Baker-Hogan as chair and Cr Ray Stevens as deputy; and a UCOL Working Party to be chaired by Cr Sue Westwood. The Ucol/Old Town Converge project has enormous potential for Wanganui. But there will be many a potential slop between the cup and the lip.

I have also changed my mind – I must admit – on the last council’s culpability when it comes to financial matters. I believe that they were fed either misinformation or incomplete information at regular intervals – and so made many poor or incorrect decisions. There was also, I believe, a lack of leadership from the mayoral office.

With the current personnel and systems in place – and the increased transparency and accountability – council will only be able to blame itself, this time, if we get it wrong.

And on that note … have a great week.

Cheers
Michael

PS If you ever want to contact me – my e-mail is michael.laws@wanganui.govt.nz