Pack of councillors to pick watchdogs
The Invercargill City Council has narrowly voted to take a greater hand in selecting panellists to advise on their controversial use of captive bolt technology to euthanise dogs.
An amendment to allow four councillors onto the selection panel split the council down the middle, with Invercargill mayor Tim Shadbolt’s casting vote required to break the deadlock.
The council suspended the use of captive bolt guns and started the current public consultation process after footage of a dog being killed at the city pound went viral.
The initial recommendation before the council was for a three-person selection panel comprising the regulatory services committee chairwoman Cr Rebecca Amundsen, environmental and planning services director Pamela Gare, and a justice of the peace.
This panel would select members of the public to undertake a three-month community engagement process on the best practice for rehoming or euthanising dogs.
At an extraordinary meeting of the council yesterday, Cr Lindsay Abbott said in the interests of public harmony, he would rather see elected representatives as members of the appointing panel.
He moved an amendment that he, Cr Allan Arnold and Cr Toni Biddle be added to the selection panel at the expense of Gare.
Cr Lesley Soper spoke against the amendment, stating concern about double handling by some of the proposed councillors.
‘‘The motion is going to add rather a lot of councillors onto a panel to make a recommendation that’s then going to come to a committee that several of those councillors are on.’’
She thought the initial recommendation was rather simpler and more straightforward and both courses of action would achieve the same end.
Arnold said the appointments were an opportunity to ’’fix something that’s been deemed to be not right with the council’’.
He felt the more people involved in the selection panel the more likely they were to get their desired result.
Cr Karen Arnold agreed with Cr Soper, feeling that the amendment was adding another layer of bureaucracy to the process.
She noted that all the councillors were entitled to take part in regulatory services committee meetings regardless of whether they were a member of the committee.
‘‘I don’t feel anti anything but I think, for simplicity, councillors will get plenty of opportunity along the process to have their say.
Cr Toni Biddle, referring to dogs being killed by captive bolt at the city council pound, said it was an emotive issue that had gone viral throughout New Zealand and the world.
It was important the people on the panel were there for the right reasons and had a vested interest in the welfare of the animals, but they also had to be objective about how the council operated, she said.
She wanted councillors to help decide who should be on the panel.
‘‘It’s critical to have people make objective decisions about that panel.’’
The council will advertise for public applications for panellists on October 21, with costs associated with the advisory panel to be met from the dog control reserve fund.