Council’s lack of action on stink its biggest gaffe
In the ever-increasing digital age of democracy, there’s really something quite special, raw and refreshing about the power of a public meeting. The classic town-hall style gathering of the engaged masses, face to face with their elected representatives, eye-balling them, belting out their questions and directly holding them to account, can give rise to an absorbing and rewarding spectacle.
Last month in Christchurch, the Avonhead Community Group’s public meeting on the Three Waters and housing density reforms attracted a stonking turnout. National MP Nicola Grigg was given a rinsing by the audience, as she struggled to defend her party’s complicit involvement in crafting the radical housing density changes that raises the spectre of three-storey townhouses monstering your neighbourhood – and stripping you of the legal right to object.
The drumbeat of discontent on those reforms, in addition to Three Waters, is undeniable.
On Friday night, the Bromley Community Centre transformed into a feisty, full-house cauldron of rousing public passion.
Residents turned out in force to demand answers and seek solutions to the mushroom cloud of despair blighting their lives, as they live and breathe the extreme stench from the fire-damaged wastewater treatment plant.
Over six months on from the fire, the Christchurch City Council is now accepting that it hasn’t exactly covered itself in glory.
Mayor Lianne Dalziel sought to turn down the room temperature from the meeting’s outset, by apologising. But just as she said at Thursday’s council meeting, Dalziel’s official line is that the organisation is sorry for ‘‘screwing up’’ the communications.
‘‘We didn’t get enough information out to let people know what was happening.’’
But it’s not just the council’s carefully-curated messaging, or lack thereof, that failed to fire.
The mindset was fundamentally flawed, as if the council was in denial that what happened in November constituted a disaster and warranted an assertive disaster management posture, to swiftly drive the response and recovery.
So much for all of that rhetoric regarding a resilience-minded council, post-quake.
Local ward councillor Yani Johanson has been acutely aware of the debilitating consequences the stench has been having on Eastside residents’ wellbeing for months.
He remains dismayed at the council’s sustained failure to fully wake up to that reality until now.
At Friday’s meeting, numerous residents highlighted the litany of health complaints they blame on the stench, including sleeplessness, headaches, stomach aches, streaming eyes and sore throats.
Many local children have been off school with headache complaints.
Yet, six and half months down the track, no-one from the council has thought to contact Bromley School to check on how they are doing or to get a sense of the impact. Incredible.
The council’s citizens and community general manager, Mary Richardson, assured the meeting she would be calling the school at the start of this week – yesterday.
Today, councillors will consider a package of measures to compensate residents at ground zero.
It needs to be targeted, meaningful and measured.
Rates relief should be a non-starter, given many residents are tenants, not homeowners.
Calls to cover the cost of GP visits for children is unnecessary – child visits are free.
Today, councillors will consider a package of measures to compensate residents at ground zero. It needs to be targeted, meaningful and measured.
But surely the meeting’s biggest bombshell was the astonishing about-face on deodorising this monumental heap of rotting, reeking biomass. Cr Phil Mauger pleaded for the council to deodorise or disinfect the filter media weeks ago, to deliver immediate and ongoing mitigation relief to residents living in this stink bomb, prior to and during the removal of the offending matter.
Ten days ago, Dalziel crudely invoked the tragedy of Pike River to shut down the clamour for any ‘‘quick fix’’ chemical interventions.
However, the council’s head of Three Waters, Helen Beaumont, stunningly revealed on Friday night that the contractor, Southern Demolition, is planning to mist and deodorise the material to suppress dust and odours.
‘‘There’s the opportunity to add deodorising chemicals.’’
Understandably, this provoked a roar of derision from the audience, fuming that deodorising hasn’t been adopted until now.
Mauger was equally dumbstruck by Beaumont’s announcement.
‘‘It was quite a revelation. We should’ve been trying this months ago – we had nothing to lose.’’
Surely, the council’s refusal to act so pragmatically for so long, in a bid to minimise the stench, has been the biggest gaffe of all.