Cyclists Close In on Council Cash

Money Talks. When a smooth rich-lister and a couple of sports celebrities seek out public money to fund their lavish pet project, they expect weak-kneed regional councillors to do what they are told. And right they are.

An incredible $6m mega-handout from Waikato Regional Council for an elite medalist cycling track on an elite school campus is all but a done deal. After weeks of intense political pressure and a public relations offensive by project backers, the WRC Rates Increase Team, led by Chairman Peter Buckley and his sidekick from Thames-Coromandel Simon Friar, voted June 29 to proceed toward funding the gold-plated Home of Cycling Trust velodrome project in Cambridge with rates dollars.

The cycling cadre originally hijacked the democratic process in April by manufacturing hundreds of WRC annual plan submissions on a project (their own) that was never even officially proposed by council. An internal WRC memo confirms “the vast majority of the annual plan submissions were in the form of a pro forma letter organised by the Home of Cycling Charitable Trust.” When asked how many of those synthetic submissions were from the Waikato, WRC could not answer. Despite widespread opposition to the huge grant, WRC staff have not revealed how many of those submitters actually live outside the region. Councillors, obviously don’t want that information made public either.

There’s been special-interest greed, insensitivity and government irresponsibility to sink a ship. HOC interim chief Geoff Balme’s insistance that stripping $3 from every ratepayer each year is “not greedy” only highlights his group’s arrogance. Out-of-touch WRC councillor from Hamilton Lois Livingston lost her own grip on reality, calling the $6m regional cost “miniscule”.

Meanwhile, top WRC staff is greasing the project’s wheels. Council CEO Bob Laing’s report in June amounted to a flow chart to meet legal requirements for project approval, with hardly a mention the velodrome giveaway flies in the face of existing council policies and priorities. Council CFO Mike Garrett, whose job should be finding operational efficiencies and tuning budgets, spent time insterad producing a detailed report on plans for loading Waikato ratepayers with the massive project costs.

At a time when WRC has cut clean streams programmes, reduced environmental initiatives funding, postponed critical pest control work, and pinched core service budgets all because of cost concerns, Friar and his team at WRC voice no concerns at dishing out millions in working family and pensioner rates to the playtime project of one of the country’s richest men, Simon Perry.

The lobbying has never been more intense, with out of town sports execs trying to sell regional councillors on their project’s supposed “community benefits”. The fact is, you don’t take a Sunday drive at Pukekohe Park…and you don’t take leisurely bike rides on a remote velodrome racetrack. Residents of Thames and the Coromandel stand to enjoy exactly zero benefit from the cycling track in Cambridge but stand to pay for it nevertheless.

This week WRC kicks off so-called “public consultation”, a costly and proven farce in itself. Although the money involved is greater than virtually any single item WRC has considered in years, council is using a stripped-down, bare-bones process via the internet, further skewing results against poor, elderly, and working residents. As usual, if results support the council majority, councillors will use that to buttress their decision. If results go against them, councillors will vote as they please and tell ratepayers “thanks for sharing”.

The cycling rates rip-off approaches a full 10 percent of the region’s entire permanent investment endowment and an additional 1 percent rates burden for decades. Unless at least one Rates Increase Team councillor grows a spine, a team of slick cycling hucksters will pull off the biggest white-collar rates heist in Waikato history.

ENDS

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