The Otago Regional Council appears to have jumped the gun when it rallied to support Queenstown’s transport aspirations.
It may also then have failed to follow its own procedures when it followed through.
Last month, the Queenstown Lakes District Council made it clear it did not support the regional council’s push for the resort town to be a tier-one urban authority in order to attract new levels of transport and infrastructure funding.
Nevertheless, this month, the regional council approved a public and active transport committee recommendation to advocate for that.
Before the vote, Cr Tim Mepham questioned whether the council ought to still be considering adopting the recommendation, based on the position of Queenstown Lakes District Mayor Glyn Lewers.
"He was sort of saying that it’s nice that you’re paying attention to what’s happening up here but we’re not really that interested in being a tier 1 town or city," Cr Mepham said.
"We’ve already done it," chairwoman Cr Robertson said.
"We have written that letter, it’s gone away, and it was done hand-in-hand with QLDC.
"So, they saw what we were writing and were happy with it."
Regional council chief executive Richard Saunders said the letter advocated for Queenstown to have access to tier 1 funding without the town being defined as tier 1.
Cr Elliot Weir interjected.
"I just want to understand this properly ... If the committees don’t have the delegation, and so it has to come before council to approve this motion, were we supposed to go and act on it before then?"
Mr Saunders said if that were the case, "we’d be doing nothing for months at a time".
The council had a resolution on the table to review committees and the delegations set by council last year.
"That’s one of the open questions, I guess, to come back and just understand if the existing delegations allow us to function lawfully — and actually carry out our work programme."
In response to Otago Daily Times questions after the meeting, Mr Saunders said the council was not aware of similar instances.
And he said the council was indeed operating within the confines of the law.
"The [public and active transport committee] is a committee of the whole, which means it has the same membership as council.
"As far as we’re aware council has not overturned a committee recommendation previously, and the council regularly delegates actions to the chair in order to keep business moving, and this instance is in line with previous delegations."
Cr Weir said he was comfortable committee delegations were being properly managed at the moment.
"It is an ongoing discussion though and I’m looking forward to continually improving and discussing more effective governance structures in the future."
