At monitoring committee, elected members heard a presentation from Acorn Foundation.
This is an independent charitable organisation where public spirited citizens leave all, or part of their estates to Acorn.

They already have $4 million in hand and have given away to charity over $200,000 this year. If this sounds like you, give them a ring. It does make a difference to our community.
Surf Life Saving New Zealand, which ratepayers fund to the tune of $141,800 a year for professional life guards during the week over the holiday period, gave their report. Some elected members asked for more details, but some of us wanted less form filling and administration and more lifesaving. Gone is the sensation rhetoric of yesteryear where it used to be claimed they were saving hundreds of lives a summer and now the service details 11 lives saved this year, but many preventative actions. Education and intervention featured in their modus operandi now. It would be better if there were no lives saved and everyone swam in safety. Calm weather this year no doubt contributed to the welcome reduction in action.

Drowned in bills
We discussed issues from the 180 day water billing exercise.
It has failed as I had suspected, and a paper is coming back on it. In response to my question, staff said that it would be possible to go back to 90 days billing from July 1 this year. I will be supporting that move.
Another paper will come to full council on next Monday on the government's proposed leaky homes package. Thanks to the foresight of some of us in previous councils in trying to get council out of doing many things – issuing building permits for instance – ratepayers liability will not be anything like what it could have been. I'll report further on this next week.

A Mission for the Elms
I missed the full council meeting last week where its involvement in the purchase of a house adjacent to the Elms – Mission House – was raised. Apparently it got quite nasty with a personal attack on the CEO – most unfortunate as there were no reds under the bed as monitoring committee received the full facts. Mr Des Ferrow and the Elms Trustees had had lengthy negotiations with the owner of the relevant house to preserve the Mission House for the future. They concluded a deal and asked council for a contribution. CEO Stephen Town has delegated power (given by full council) to make these sorts of decisions. Funding comes from the strategic property account where funds are held from the buying and selling of council property as property situations change.
This term, Mayor Stuart Crosby and council appointed a ‘consultative group' of three councillors: Wayne Moultrie, Mike Baker and me, to provide public oversight. In the past, where all elected members had been involved, it was difficult to maintain confidentiality, which is why it is now run like this. For instance, once vendors get a whiff of council's interest, prices soar – there's no goodwill where public funds are concerned. And there were many other issues. This is an example where owner's rights to privacy are breached before settlement (due this Friday) and it's not even a council purchase.
We were told that the purchase price is about $1,283,000 of which $400,000 comes from strategic property account and TECT funding the balance. For what it's worth, valuation is about $800,000.

Doing right, by the past
At least the Mission House is now preserved from any further surrounding development at that side. Despite claims from some quarters about my views on culture and history, I have always supported the Mission House. Many of you will be aware that it was until recent times the private home of the Maxwell family. Mr Duff Maxwell in his later years found it difficult to maintain, even though he made visitors welcome and opened it to the public.
Council always supported the Elms because if it hadn't then it would have fallen into irretrievable disrepair. When Mr Maxwell died, the family sold it to the Elms Trust and council made a contribution. Likewise the purchase of surrounding houses. I understand that these properties were the result of the family selling off sites over the 150 years of the Mission House's existence to enable them to keep the homestead property as the city grew around them. It is real history, second only to the Treaty House and had council/ratepayers not got involved, it wouldn't be there in its original state as it is now. Well done to Des Ferrow, TECT and council ratepayers.
Things were very quiet after Stephen Town presented the facts.
I'll put it down to the growing election fever demonstrated by some elected members. Mayor Stuart Crosby says he was extremely disappointed in the unsubstantiated personal attack on the CEO and one phone call could have produced the facts and not an attack based on fiction. Bill Grainger wouldn't let it go claiming he was justified because the $400,000 hadn't been disclosed in the museum site discussion – even though the property purchase hadn't yet settled.

The cost of digging up downtown
At transportation taskforce committee, the Wharf Street road works were discussed at length. Originally planned to take five weeks, it took 11 weeks – plus many issues with retailers and the public. It was not a happy contract and this contractor is about to start on Willow Street. Historic Places Trust delayed things for two weeks when some shells were discovered. There were two iwi representatives on site for five weeks while the digging was done at $45 per hour. Staff intend to advise Willow Street retailers of a much more realistic timeframe for their work. I said that might allow the work to expand to take the time available. I note the Auckland supercity project already descended into chaos with an almost 50 per cent budget blowout – up to $117 million from $80 million – as the song goes 'You ain't seen nothing yet”.