Greetings from Kaikoura, and welcome to what we believe should be the official centre of the universe! This site is aimed at not only giving you the facts and figures, but also to give you a comprehensive "peek" at our culture, lifestyles, history, and dreams. Also, if you feel inclined, you can keep up with my regular "Mayoral Movements" and take the opportunity to contact me.   Email me here >>>   Go to my Blog >>>

Mayor’s Report 

Mayoral Movements this past month:

• Wed 16 July I attended the AGM of KITI.
• Thurs 17 July, Jodie Denton & I attended and spoke to the regional meeting of CRT managers – in particular, explaining our work with Environmental Sustainability & Biodiversity and how they as a business could be involved.
• Mon 21 July I met with Megan Pfeifer (Community Development Officer) and Angela Blunt (SEEK Coordinator) to plan a strategy for funding application with Mayor’s Task Force for Jobs for extending Angela’s role with Youth Transition.
• Thursday 14 July I continued my regular catch-ups with Mr Trevor Walker (Housing NZ). This was intended to be coincided with the Pensioner Cottage opening – however this was cancelled (twice). Trevor re-iterated his desire to see Kaikoura get its share of HNZ assistance and talked about the ways that this can be done. I have asked for a written synopsis of available partnerships for our information.
• Sat 26 July – I attended the KK Volunteer Fire Brigade AGM. Their comments at the time regarding “things Council” were the necessity for undercover storage of the Fire Watertruck and the dump fees charged to the Brigade.
• Sun 26 July I attended and opened the People First Conference here in the Memorial Hall. This was a forum for the top o' the south IDEAS clients to experience and run a community conference by & for themselves.
• Councilors Pablecheque, Holmes myself and our CEO travelled to Rotorua for the LGNZ Annual Conference. We each had pre-planned the sessions to attend that was of particular interest and/or associated with our individual portfolios.

For myself, I attended the opening day which included two keynote speakers, several Ministers of the Crown and LGNZ reports and updates, The Mayors Taskforce for Jobs AGM, “Strengthening our People” tour of youth facilities and programmes-along with the many “networking” opportunities.

I need to say that this years conference overall I found somewhat wanting in relevance and delivery of new information. Politicians were politicians-in-election-year mode, and the two keynote speakers told me little I didn’t already know.

However to have some balance it became obvious quite early in the conference that we as a district are producing services, have policies in place and hold visions that are if not equal to, then certainly surpass those of other like districts in delivery and quality.

This has been confirmed by the amount of enquiries for further information received in my Office stemming from discussions had during the conference. I also had several opportunities to present Kaikoura’s perspective to various workshops and break-out groups-all of which were well received. It is interesting to learn from representatives from other Districts that many have yet to include Social Services, youth participation and regional or national Agencies/Providers  etc into their overall governance and management systems.

I must say that I came away from a lot of the sessions quite proud of what we as a District have achieved - and plan to achieve - over the next few years.

• Mon 04 August I met with the Principal of KKHS as a pre-ERO heads up. The KKHS BOT asked if I would be what is termed as the “Friend of the School”. This entailed meeting with the ERO group daily during their following review week and being in attendance at some of their meetings within the School.
I look forward to their report.

• Wed 13 August – I wrote to all rural ratepayers explaining that although their Rates assessments stated they were rated on a 120%  differential, this was effectively removed and their rates calculation reflected that. The written error is now rectified.

• Thurs 14 August – the first meeting of the “Youth Skills Governance Group” was held and a verbal update can be given on this at this month's Council meeting.

Cheers
Kevin

back to top