Marketing stoush splits councils

The future of jobs at Manawatu¯’s economic development agency is in doubt approaching Christmas with the Palmerston North City Council wresting back control of some of its activities.

It is a move that one of six dissenting city councillors, Lorna Johnson, described as probably spelling the end of the agency and damaging the relationship with the Manawatu¯ District Council.

Mayor Grant Smith and deputy Aleisha Rutherford have led the charge to bring back central city destination marketing and control of three key events in house.

The change over-rules the advice of council staff, an independent $50,000 review of how best to carry out economic development work, and a second $17,000 review of how best to do destination marketing.

Neither review specifically considered the management of the Sort It careers expo, the Manawatu¯ Business Awards and the New Zealand Agrifood Week events.

The financial implications would include the council reclaiming about $200,000 of the $1.9 million it contributed to the agency each year and could put at risk a $700,000 government contract it has for strategic tourism asset protection work.

Smith told the final council meeting of the year on Monday the change was about the city council wanting to ‘‘tell its own story’’.

He said there was a possibility the three events could be contracted back to the agency.

‘‘But we want to bring back the decision-making.

‘‘We are not taking everything away. We are not meddling with economic development.’’

Smith said given the city council was likely to grant nearly $12m to the agency over the next six years of a new contract, it was reasonable to expect more say in how the money was spent.

Cr Lew Findlay supported the changes, as he believed ratepayers needed to know more about how the agency spent the $1.9m a year it received from city ratepayers. ‘‘It’s 2 per cent of our rates take that goes to [the agency]. People ask me, ‘what do we get in return?’ And I have great difficulty answering.’’

City council acting general manager for strategy and planning David Murphy advised against the changes.

He said issues the city council had could be handled by being more specific about its expectations, improving relationships and communication, or varying the terms of the contract.

Murphy said removing the destination marketing part of the agency’s role would be ‘‘potentially challenging to the overall integrity of [the agency]’’, as its activities were intertwined and not easily separated.

Cr Rachel Bowen said she was ‘‘furious’’ about the council’s 9-6 majority decision.

‘‘It is short-term politics at the expense of long-term economic development,’’ she said.

Agency chairman Malcolm Bailey said the board was saddened by the city council’s decision. ‘‘As things stand right now we don’t know what our future funding will be and we don’t know how the Manawatu¯ District Council will react to the decisions made by the city.’’

Manawatu¯ mayor Helen Worboys said the district council was disappointed with the city council’s actions.

She believed better communication could solve whatever issues the city council had without having to remove functions from the agency.