The Otago Regional Council (ORC) council meeting ended this week with councillors talking over one another after Cr Michael Laws alleged the ORC was hiding behind commercial sensitivity provisions in the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act (Lgoima) to exclude the public.
Cr Laws said the council’s official reason for holding a discussion of the continuation of the Lake Whakatipu ferry service beyond its present trial did not stand up.
Yesterday, ORC chief executive Richard Saunders reaffirmed his view it did.
Earlier, this month he protested a potentially secret discussion about an unbudgeted $126,000 scheme to deter antisocial behaviour on Dunedin buses.
In that case, the council backed down from its initial decision to put an item called "security for Dunedin public transport" in the public-excluded part of a committee agenda.
In the past, non-public debates about Ngai Tahu committee nominees, lifting bus driver wages, and allowing Port Otago access to a local government line of credit to pay for the new ORC headquarters and others have raised Cr Laws’ ire.
This week, Cr Laws said: "Given that there is no commercial tendering of this particular contract and we are talking about a potential cost to the Otago ratepayer of $6.7million . . . "
He was not allowed to finish.
"No," chairwoman Cr Gretchen Robertson said. "That’s talking about the particular detail of the paper."
"Oh, right so you want to hide all this away again, do you? Despite it being almost $7million dollars worth of council spending," Cr Laws countered.
Cr Kate Wilson was one of those who again interjected.
"I think we need his sound turned off," Cr Wilson said.
"Oh, right, so you’re going now to censor as well, too," Cr Laws, who attended the meeting on Zoom, said.
"You cannot do that [reveal details] when we have a paper to be discussed in private for the reasons stated," Cr Robertson said.
When Cr Laws protested that he ought to be allowed to speak to the motion to go into public excluded, the chief executive, Mr Saunders said Cr Laws could not "speak to the content of the paper", which was included in the non-public agenda.
"I’m not specifically speaking to the... " Cr Laws said.
He did not finish the sentence.
However, Mr Saunders said yesterday his microphone had not been turned off.
Mr Saunders said the non-public staff report had been reviewed against Lgoima criteria for excluding the public.
"We were and remain satisfied that the reasoning [stated] applied."
Mr Saunders said not all financial decisions were discussed in private.
Rather, each paper was assessed on a case-by-case basis.
He said the council was working to confirm ongoing ferry services as part of the public transport network in Queenstown. "Real Journeys are currently contracted to provide a ferry service to June 30, 2024.
"There is no confirmed provider past this point. We are going through a procurement process which will meet the requirements of Waka Kotahi [Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency] as a potential co-funder for the service."
However, the ORC had nothing further to say at this time, he said.
Cr Laws said once again the council was seeking "to do its business in the dark rather than allowing ratepayers to witness the decision making and expenditure of their sizable annual rate contributions".
