Community Board update
The Ōmokoroa Community Board (OCB) and Council are back in action post-lockdown, and Council has adopted the OCB proposed annual plan. What does this mean for Ōmokoroa?
Railway bridge: This will have an addition this financial year on the eastern side for cyclists, pedestrians (and light traffic in an emergency). It will be followed by similar on the western side, as requested by the OCB in a staged approach. A longawaited safety measure.
Toilets and a covered picnic area at Cooney Reserve have been referred to the long term plan, so they will come with a little delay.
Seats and bike racks will start appearing around the peninsula at strategic points for our pedestrians and cyclists.
The new pavilion will be supplemented by a pathway from Ōmokoroa Road with funding for landscaping.
After a workshop, OCB, Council staff and the landscape architect have decided to advance to the next stage the exciting new plans for the Domain playground informed by our young users. One councillor seemed rather keen to try out the new playground equipment; some folks never grow up.
Silica: The council have agreed to fund a Feasibility Study for the cost of removing silica from the water in Ōmokoroa and, if viable, present to the ratepayers the cost for consideration.
CCTV: Following quotes from Tarnix and other queries, the OCB are working on presenting the community with options. This will have to take in any Council changes to CCTV policy.
Close to my own heart is the development of the community response plan (CRP) that will guide the community during a civil disaster. The council CRP manager and I will be looking for members of the community that are willing to stand up and help. Please contact me if you are interested in our Community Response Team (CRT). Covid-19 has already informed us and provided us with some valuable experience on how we can mobilise. The “In This Together Ōmokoroa” (ITTO) group formed during Level 3 demonstrates how generous and caring our community can be at times of need. There will now be a link between ITTO to the council’s CDEM staff, who have a community response and welfare focus. This means ITTO and our CRT will get council support going forward. In recent meetings with Community Response Teams for the surrounding areas, the Community Resilience Advisor commended our ITTO team. He felt that as a group we did extremely well, especially as a newly-formed group. ITTO essentially acted as a community emergency response team for this particular civil emergency.
For the future, what I want, and I suspect so does the community, is something in place for all types of disaster before it is needed. Let us not forget to do what we need to do to stay safe. The rest of the world is not as fortunate as us in NZ. Ōmokoroa take care, look after yourselves and each other, we are in this together.