Two attempts by Kāpiti Councillor Jackie Elliott to have the legal proceedings started by KCDC staff in December 2013, against two Ōtaki residents and their contracted arbiter, have been thwarted by a lack of support by the Mayor and most of her fellow councillors.
“The support of three elected members was needed to validate my call for an urgent extraordinary meeting to initiate calm, reasonable discussion around the table on the issue,” says Ms Elliott. The same two, Crs Gurunathan and Scott signed it each time.
Many Councillors did not attend the only staff briefing on the Ōtaki tree felling case four weeks ago, and the mayor who was on leave when the story broke has yet to sit down with his team to discuss it. ” I expected the mayor to be the first to call an urgent meeting and this inaction is appalling. KCDC has quite rightly come in for a lot of public criticism over this and it is time for the mayor and council to take back control of what was a very poor senior management decision.”
“The overwhelming feedback I am getting is that the Council’s decision to continue with this prosecution is just plain wrong, and I agree.”
Ms Elliott says the next public meeting of Council is at 10am on March 6th, and she is inviting the public to attend to initiate this discussion themselves. “This is your opportunity, and it is important that Councillors wake up and listen to you,” Cr Elliott says.