Mayor, councillor to miss longterm plan meetings

A LATE change in scheduling has meant Invercargill Mayor Sir Tim Shadbolt is not available to attend two of council’s longterm plan meetings.

An anonymous source approached the Otago Daily

Times yesterday to say they were shocked at the mayor’s absence as it was ‘‘such an important day for the future of the council’’.

Councillors had a longterm plan workshop yesterday afternoon and today it would start deliberations on the 560 submissions received during the public process.

Council independent appointee Lindsay McKenzie yesterday said Sir Tim’s absence was because of meeting scheduling changes.

‘‘My understanding is there was a reasonably late change which caused difficulties for the mayor, and I think another councillor.

‘‘But given the meeting today is about discussing priorities ahead of the subsequent meeting where the submissions and the LTP will be formally considered, I don’t see that as restricting anticipation or compromising the process in any way.’’

He said it was not unusual for mayors to not be present in discussions of this kind.

Invercargill city councillors would today discuss a report by council’s strategy and policy manager Rhiannon Sutter which includes a summary of the issues raised by submitters.

Among the main topics were the city centre master plan and important city assets, including Rugby Park and the Southland Museum and Art Gallery.

The report recommends council follows the preferred option to invest a council contribution of $39.4 million towards a $52.5 million project to reopen and refurbish the existing museum at Queens Park.

Ms Sutton also recommended allocating a budget of $4.9 million to complete the first stage of work at Rugby Park to make it ‘‘structurally sound’’.

The report recommends lifting the budget from $1.4 million to $4.1 million to make the Water Tower earthquakesafe.

‘‘There have been delays in finalising the design due to the difficulty in adding a significant volume of structural steel to a specialist heritage building,’’ the report said.

The work was now estimated to be done by 202223, she said.