Hamilton City Council councillor Dave Macpherson: "It’s a box-ticking exercise for Audit NZ, it’s not a meaningful help for us in our work." (File photo)Hamilton City councillor Dave Macpherson has lambasted a report that sets out a framework of suppositions for the upcoming long term plan as “a box-ticking exercise ... that means diddly squat”. Macpherson left his council colleagues in little doubt of his disdain for the process, at a meeting on Thursday afternoon to discuss progress on the upcoming long term plan. Another was Cr Martin Gallagher, who was dismayed by a paragraph that asserted the long term plan would assume no change to the city’s boundary. “The cost of water reform is massive for local government ... there are huge infrastructure costs we are all facing.”“We know we have thrown many balls up in the air,” she said of the council’s own long term plan wishlist.

Source: Stuff November 26, 2020 03:45 UTC