End of era celebration

Manukau City Council’s Policy and Activities committee decided at a meeting on Tuesday night not to go ahead with an end of era $85,000 community celebration and to instead leverage off existing annual events.

Committee chair Colleen Brown said the decision was made that any celebration of Manukau would leverage off Full Throttle and the Manukau Festival of Arts which are established events that happen each year across the city in the month of October.

“The recommendation was that no additional expenditure be approved for a special event to mark the occasion of Manukau city ceasing to exist.”

“I made it very clear at the meeting that we were only dealing with the celebration of Manukau event for the entire community, not discussions around a staff event. I am very disappointed the facts have been misconstrued.”

The $85,000 will remain in the council’s grants fund and will not be spent on a staff event as implied in the media today.

An additional recommendation was that a working party consisting of elected members further investigate options and report to a later Policy and Activities committee meeting.

ENDS

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