Message from the Mayor 2 Feb 2022
Mayoral Column 02 Feb 2022
January ended with a great hui with the Rūnanga, discussions were had about how to navigate the challenges we face in the year ahead together, along with some constructive conversations building on our relationship and getting a better understanding of each other priorities.
Speaking of priorities, we are just getting into the crunch time of some of our exciting capital projects including Wakatu Quay and the Link Pathway, so stay tuned for some big news around them in the next few months.
We are also just finishing up the planned road resealing programme in the LTP which doesn’t sound like much but is very cool considering as a council we have done what we said we would do, in the time frame we said we would do it and haven’t spent more than we said we would!
Who would believe we are already into the second month of the year, the speed of which January went I would put down to how busy the town was. As we were expecting town has gotten quieter after a reasonably busy holiday period. There is still a lot of uncertainty out there at the moment especially with what Covid 19 is going to look like for our community. I am aware that fair bit of focus is going into business continuity planning and also care in the community responses for when we have a serious outbreak in our community.
To update you all on the Campaign 4 Local Democracy (the three waters coalition of councils and mayors trying to get government to consider alternate solutions) a lot of work is going on behind the scenes to put our best foot forward to the government and showing the strong community views. Last Friday the C4LD case was presented to the Ministerial Working Group. We are now waiting for confirmation of meeting dates and times with the Prime Minister and other political parties that we were not able to meet in Wellington at the end of last year. The Ministerial Working Group will be reporting back to government at the end of February. There is a lot to play out in this space yet!
Stay safe and well and look out for each other.
Craig Mackle
