Mayor Law calls a document (that we all paid for) "defaming" and says it is "a litany of lies" according to the Rodney Times (29 Nov, 2005). He was referring to the report prepared by Tim Haire at the direction of the RDC on the code of conduct complaint brought against Cr John Watson by RDC CEO Vijaya Vaidyanath.
Unfortunately for the public, the RDC has not seen fit to make the report easily available by placing
it on their website, even though the complaint, and now the report, have received wide publicity
as serious public issues. So the WRRA is now making the report available to the public in the
interest of democracy and open government.
One of the Mayor's complaints about the report is that he had no right of reply, so we offer him that right here: any reply that he cares to make will be posted right here along with the independent investigator's report that has so angered him.
[Note added December 22: Clearly reacting before he
had even seen this site, the mayor "challenged" us in the press to present the results of his own
investigation of the investigation. Well, he can't challenge us to do that, because we
had already made the offer, which still stands. However, we haven't heard from him yet.
Now we challenge him: Can he back up his claims of defamation and lies,
or was it all bluster to create doubt that the independent report was sound?]
Our own technical apology - regrettably, our available skill and technology can put this report here only in a somewhat inconvenient way, one scanned page at a time. When you click the link below, you will see the first of two web pages of illegible thumbnail images of the report's pages (or maybe just a grid with the page numbers). To read the full report you will need to click on each page you want to see, read it, then use the browser's "back" button to go back to the index page to click on the next page image, etc.
Here is a brief guide to what you'll find on different pages in the document
(still rough, working on a better presentation!):
| 1 - 21 | Independent Investigator Tim Haire's findings, conclusions & recommendations |
| 22 - 23 | The Complaint of CEO Vijaya Vaidyanath |
| 24 | The Coaster article |
| 25 - 36 | Rodney District Council's Code of Conduct |
| 37 - 45 | Statement of CEO Vijaya Vaidyanath |
| 46 - 50 | Statement of John Watson, setting the scene with respect to Wgp Road |
| 51 - 68 | Violations of Due Process, natural justice, the role and actions of the CEO |
| 68 - 70 | Cr Watson's point-by-point conclusions |
| 71 - 74 | The complaint, lack of communication, political motivation |
| 75 - 85 | What the Councillors were saying about Wgp Road - community response |
| 85 - 94 | The CEO's role in the complaint |
| 114 - 121 | Further questions by Tim Haire including the Law email to Times Media Group |
| 115 | Minutes of RDC apology to staff |
| 122 | Email from John Law to the owner of the Times Media Group & withheld from investigation |
| 123 - 130 | What the newspapers and letters to the editor were saying |
Also, at least for the present, you will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader to see the scanned images, but we imagine that most of your equipment can already handle that. If not, drop us an email and we'll send or post instructions on how to download the (free) reader. Also, it is possible that the images will appear in another common format later, as part of the effort to make this document more easily available.
Despite the inconvenience, it might be worth your while as a Rodney voter to start at the beginning
and get an idea about what has been going on. As with a good novel, you might find it hard to stop.
It won't take you half as long to read the report as it took to get on or off the Whangaparaoa
Peninsula a few months ago, which is what started this whole fuss. If we can find a more convenient
way to get the material to you, we will.
For now, click here to get to the first index page of thumbnails.
and for the second index page of thumbnails, which also has some worthwhile reading, click here.