2006 Outgoing President's Yearend Message
PRESIDENT'S YEAR-END MESSAGE April 30, 2006

The WRRA has had a year of healing wounds and dealing with loose ends, but we have also managed to move forward with some of our main missions.

We have made submissions on several issues, including traffic management and the need for the Council to take a more active role in providing and guarding the open spaces and natural environment that brought so many of us here in the first place. While we would like to have made more submissions, it is hard to escape the feeling that we should first spend our time in electing more non-deaf ears to key positions and improving the state of democracy in Rodney.

While we are as strongly against rate increases as anyone, that is a too-easy position that accomplishes little. It is more to the point to elect competent and fiscally responsible leaders, or at least leaders who listen. We hope to continue the WRRA's longstanding involvement with Rodney politics, in pursuit of that goal.

We have spearheaded a movement to retain for the public a vital asset that was almost given away to private interests by Mayor Law and Bill Smith: that public land known as the Hammerhead at Gulf Harbour.

We held three public meetings, to first get the word out and then to keep the public informed about the state of play, and we obtained further publicity through the media. Also, it is fair to say that without timely intervention by our Councillor Wayne Walker, who has also served on the WRRA Committee, the Hammerhead would right now be under the control of a developer and Peninsula ratepayers and residents would have received nothing in return but more cars on the road.

The community can thank the WRRA for pursuing this, and we can all thank Wayne for being the man on the spot who did what needed doing when fast action was essential. Councillors Watson and MacGillivray have also played very important roles in getting the message out, and I can only hope that the Eastern Ward will someday be represented by more such active advocates of our best interests and open government.

Our new website (http://www.wrra-inc.org.nz) has also been useful for our communications mission, as we have made public much that the Mayor would have hidden, such as the history of the Hammerhead. Also noteworthy is the publication of the judgement that the Code of Conduct complaint against Councillor John Watson was baseless. When I posted a copy of the official findings, which Mayor Law had publicly condemned, I invited him to present his own response, as you can still see at the website. However, I have heard nothing from him directly in the six months since then.

Instead, he recently announced to the Rodney Times that his own privately commissioned report had reached different conclusions, and said that a copy was "in the post" to me for the website. Whatever he sent would appear to have been in the post for several weeks now, and remains unseen. Clearly, the WRRA website can provide a way for people to learn more than would otherwise be allowed, both about the dry facts of everyday politics and the realities of character.

One of our purposes as an organisation is (quoting from our Rules) to "provide facilities for recreation, entertainment and social and cultural activities," and we are at this moment inside the main vehicle to achieve that end: Whangaparaoa Hall. The community is now more likely than ever before to go on enjoying the use of the Hall, because of the vesting of title in the Whangaparaoa Community Trust. The community's continuing use of the Hall is now safer than it has ever been, since the WCT is less vulnerable to outside interference than the WRRA itself, which has suffered serious property losses over the years.

You might have noticed the Hammerhead banner on the front of the Hall, placed there by WRRA with the permission of the WCT.

This is an illustration of the working of the Memorandum of Understanding between the WCT and the WRRA (copy attached). We expect this formal recognition of the close relationship between two organisations to serve everyone well into the indefinite future.

I would also like to take this occasion to say that the Committee has been very pleased with Brian Smith as the WRRA representative on the WCT Board, and he has agreed to serve for a second year. He has been a very constructive presence on the Board, and has represented WRRA's interests well. Thank you, Brian!

We are pleased with the WCT's actions this year as new Hall proprieters. Since assuming title to the Hall, the WCT (with the help of many volunteers and some professionals) has re-finished the floor we're standing on, which was overdue for attention, as well as renewing a great deal of paint both interior and exterior, and installing a new circuit breaker box downstairs so the lights and power points are now safe and reliable.

Aside from this, in accord with our original goals, Hall users will have noticed little or no difference due to the change in ownership. The Hall is still available to the community at below-cost rates, thanks to the volunteer labor of top management and thanks also to the subsidy of rent from couple of commercial users. One of these, Vodafone, dates clear back to when I was first President, more than ten years ago, and we negotiated rent that rises with inflation. You may have noticed that WRRA subscriptions and Hall rentals have increased little or not at all over the last 10-15 years. What a different world it would be if other institutions could boast similar records!

The effort to safeguard this community benefit was not without its costs, though, and one of the loose ends this year was the last of the lawyer bills. We found their bill excessive, and instead of their original claim for a final installment of $7,688.45. I negotiated a full and final settlement for $3,000.00.

However, another loose end remains unresolved, which is money that the RDC rightfully owes us to pay for the cost of dealing with the unjustified legal action they financed against us. Since there could be important ramifications, and because any further work will have to be carried on by a new President and new Committee, I would like to ask the sense of the meeting on this issue:

Would the members here assembled support the filing of a complaint with the Disputes Tribunal to claim the final $3,587.70 that we should not have had to pay the lawyers, or should we just let the matter rest and fade into the past? There are cogent arguments on both sides, but we really can't take the time to go over them all now, and it may be that no positions would be changed anyway. I know it will be helpful to the incoming Committee to know your wishes, so I will ask for a show of hands. Those in favour of claiming the $3,587.70? Against?

On behalf of the incoming Committee, thank you for your input.[the vote was overwhelmingly in favour of pursuing the issue]

That brings me to a part of my outgoing address that is unique in my experience: we have received more than the minimum number of nominations for General Committee, and we are going to have an election.

As outgoing President, I want to thank my fellow Committee members for their help this past year, which has been very considerable. I also want to thank them for almost unanimously making themselves available again for another year of this sometimes arduous task.

I should point out that working for the WRRA is often actually fun, as well as just grimly gratifying. I hope that future Committees will accentuate the positive and make it even more fun, rather than endlessly revisiting the controversies of the past.

I want to offer special thanks to Wayne Walker for his long and very valuable service. I trust that the WRRA will continue to benefit from his knowledge and energy despite the fact that he has chosen to remove his name from the ballot this time. Although Wayne was nominated and initially accepted the nomination, he is very aware of the need for new blood on the Committee, and stood aside so that we could recommend a full slate of seven that would include two valuable newcomers as well as old hands.

I believe that emphasizing the positive is the best way forward, and will help the WRRA to increase its membership and to continue to get the best possible people to serve in leadership roles. As important as it is to bring in fresh viewpoints, it is also vital that the new people should be able to work harmoniously with the continuing members.

With that in mind, I want to share my strong recommendation that you support the returning Committee members with your vote, as well as the new recruits who appear on the "recommended" list the Committee has produced. By voting for these people, you will elect a balanced Committee that is a known quantity, with people who know they can work well together to continue to lead the WRRA forward.

I recognise that those whose names appear only on the alphabetically arranged ballot, but not on the Committee's recommended list may feel that this recommendation gives an unfair advantage to those on the list. I therefore invite any candidates who wish to address the meeting to do so, beginning with those not on the outgoing Committee's list. Candidates who choose to do so may introduce themselves and address the meeting for as long as two minutes each. We will then vote.

Thank you for your support during this past year!

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