Board labelled ‘dysfunctional’

An Invercargill City councillor has described the Southland Museum and Art Gallery board as dysfunctional, saying there has been a lack of direction around the future of the museum.

Nobby Clark tabled a notice of motion yesterday’s full council meeting asking that it commission a structural engineering and quantity surveyor report that identifies the cost of strengthening the existing museum structure.

The Southland Museum and Art Gallery [SMAG] pyramid building in Invercargill was controversially closed in 2018 because it was deemed an earthquake risk.

Soon after it closed, the museum trust board commissioned strategic planner Tim Walker to help guide it on the best way to redevelop the museum.

During yesterday’s discussions, Clark voiced his frustrations that it was taking too long to sort the future of Southland’s museum.

While he was not on the council when the museum was closed, he was vocal around his belief that the closure was an overreaction.

‘‘The bottom line for the ratepayer is we have had the museum closed for two years now and we haven’t had any direction or focus around where we are going.

‘‘SMAG is a dysfunctional unit, it’s had the Tim Walker report since June last year and you are going to have a meeting in March, nine months later. It is just terrible.’’

Councillor Darren Ludlow took exception to Clark’s comments.

He said the final report was not available until late last year.

Ludlow, Alex Crackett, and Lesley Soper all said it was the council that asked for the delay in the report being released to the public for strategic reasons, not SMAG.

Council property manager Paul Horner tabled a report at yesterday’s meeting on the back of Clark’s notice of motion. It says a strengthening cost estimate was carried out in 2014, which identified the figure at $9.97 million.

A recommendation in the report suggested council review all the strategic planning reports about a future museum before asking for another engineering assessment.

Six councillors – Soper, Ludlow, Crackett, Graham Lewis, Rebecca

Amundsen, and Peter Kett – voted in favour of the recommendations in the report, which effectively shut down Clark’s motion.

Five – Clark, Mayor Tim Shadbolt, Ian Pottinger, Nigel Skelt and Allan Arnold – voted against the recommendations.

Toni Biddle and Lindsay Abbott were not in attendance.

Clark felt even if the council decided its preference was to build a new building, it would need to consult the public.

He felt it prudent to get the strengthening cost estimate sorted now rather than hold the process up later.