Taumarunui fights plan to hire Marketer

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 9, Issue 402, 3 September 1991, Page 5

Taumarunui fights plan to hire Marketer

Not content to lose at the council table, a gioup of Taumarunui's Ruapehu District Cc incillors have moved to stop the appointment of a district marketing officer. /One of the councillors, Don Lawson, is /circulating a petition to stop the appointment and I the promotion rate, which is to be levied on commercial and industrial properties. Also, at a public meeting last week the majority of people in attendance voted for a resolution to oppose both the rate and the appointment. The move by the councillors has angered mayor Garrick Workman, who says if they felt so strongly about the matter they should have opposed it during the annual plan process two months ago. Mr Workman said all councillors were aware of the proposed appointment and rate in the annual plan, or should have been, and should have objected to it at the time of the formulation of it. "I don't expect all members of the public to read the annual plan but I do expect councillors to do so," said Mr Workman. Mr Lawson moved to have the promotion rate dropped at the council meeting where the rates were struck but the motion was lost 9-4. "And if Ellon Gould and Bill Peach were thcre I'm sure it would have been 11-4," said Mr Workman. "When we approached the public back in November on matters to do with promotion the answer we got was 'we elected you as a council to make those decisions on our bchalf, decide what programme of promotion should be carried out and decide how to fund it'," said Mr Workman. "And since then l'vc spoken about it on radio, and written about it." Mayor Workman said Waimarino, Waiouru and National Park hasn't had a chance for the same public input as Taumarunui, and that a public meeting for those areas would be set up. "If we come up with completely different rcsults in those areas it puts us in an interesting position," said Mr Workman. While the appointment of the marketing manager can be stopped, the promotion rate cannot as it has already been struck and the rate demands scnt out, said Mr Workman. He said if a marketing manager was not appointed the $50,000 would rcmain in the promotion fund. Which leaves a dilemma as to how it should be spent, said Mr Workman, as it would be collected from commercial and industrial properties. Mayor Workman agreed that it may have been better to formulatc and publicise the objcctives and job dcscription for the marketing manager, to gauge public opinion, before making the decision. "If you put such a proposal in a negative way, as happened in Taumarunui, you'll get a negative reaction." The council heard at the July meeting that a marketing plan, with objectives and job dcscription for the marketing manager, would be set down and presented to the council before an appointment was made. At least one southern councillor, who supports the proposed appointment, bclicvcs the Taumarunui councillors have effectively stymied the appointment as no one would now want ihe job with the negative feelings now prevalent in Taumarunui. "I know businesses out there are hurting ... the whole country is hurting at the moment," said Mr Workman at the Taumarunui meeting. "The overriding feeling was that if we don't do somcthing ourselves no one else is going to do it for us."