A decision on whether the Central Otago District Council should take part in an independent programme to assess its performance has been shelved until January.
The pros and cons of the CouncilMARK programme provoked robust discussion at a full meeting of the council on Wednesday.
The programme is designed to improve public knowledge of the work councils were doing in their communities and to support individual councils further improve the service and value they provide.
While the issue was on the agenda, Hugh McIntyre and Don Sparks chose to address the live-streamed meeting via phone in the public forum before the matter being considered.
Mr McIntyre told councillors to refer to an email with a report attached he had sent them on Monday evening.
"We felt that five minutes wasn’t long enough to cover what we wanted to do, so having done that, personally I don’t really have more to say," he said and he preferred to take questions from councillors.
Cr Tamah Alley said she knew it was an issue both men had been "driving for some time" and asked what their expected goal was.
"That the council join the CouncilMark programme and that’s it really," Mr McIntyre replied.
Adoption of the programme by council would lead to "a more transparent operation", he said.
Cr Neil Gillespie said the council’s report detailed costs of $26,000 but suggested the costs were much greater when staff time and workload was considered.
Mr McIntyre said it should be viewed as an investment.
Cr Ian Cooney asked Mr McIntyre and Mr Sparks which areas of council they believed needed to be more transparent.
"I probably could but I prefer not to, I mean so far in our submissions we’ve avoided individuals or personalities ... it’s best to stay that way, there are some things that happened that we don’t think were good."
Later in the meeting, council chief adviser Saskia Righarts presented her report and said concerns centred around the amount of time the programme would take for an already stretched staff and a number of vacancies within the council.
"Staff have had to pivot because of Covid-19, we have had Three Waters and RMA [Resource Management Act] reform," Dr Righarts said.
Cr Martin Mcpherson said it was a good idea to agree in principle to look at the programme in the new year.
"That would give a strong message we are keen to do this."
Central Otago Mayor Tim Cadogan referred to an email sent by Mr McIntyre in June outlining concerns about how council staff had treated people in the community for several years.
After much deliberation councillors agreed to discuss CouncilMark again in January.
