Wanaka Community Board member Dick Kane called for incidents of vandalism and wilful damage to be logged by the district council whenever contractors are called out to repair or replace damaged council property.
His request at this week's monthly board meeting came after a destructive weekend in Wanaka, when police responded to 11 incidents of vandalism and launched an arson investigation.
More than $500,000 of repairs was required to restore 800 landlines to Wanaka resident's and the resort's shopping area after fires were deliberately lit in four separate telecommunications boxes last week.
The destruction of personal and council property came at a cost to individuals, communities, and the ratepayers of the Lakes district, Mr Kane said.
Queenstown Lakes District Council engineering general manager Mark Kunath said logging general response callouts for council contractors was already done.
He "certainly" hoped contractors would be able to quantify when maintenance callouts were in response to vandal-related damage.
The council's engineering department had already noted an increase in the number of responses being made to repair and replace damaged road signs and concrete water hydrant markers in Queenstown and Wanaka.
Telecom spokesman Robin Kelly said destructive actions, such as those to telecommunications boxes by arsonists last week, affected the whole of Wanaka.
Businesses and residents bore the real cost of the damage as it impacted on their daily work and livelihoods, he said.
Wanaka Community Policing Unit Sergeant Aaron Nicholson said any improvement to information made available to police about incidents of vandalism would be helpful.
"Historically, we have always dealt with a spike in reports of wilful damage at this time of year," he said.
While wilful damage charges were at the lower end of the scale, detailed information about levels of vandalism might enable courts to see that it was "a bigger community problem [rather than] isolated events".
Wilful property damage and incidents of vandalism were often fuelled by alcohol and involved "seasonal transients" who had no real connection to the place they were visiting, Sgt Nicholson said.
