LGOIMA Requests

Good morning Blair,

Manawatū District Council does not have a Smoke Free Policy, however we do have rules that specify where workplace smoking is prohibited.

Areas where workplace smoking or vaping is prohibited include:
• Administration Building
• Library
• Sewage Treatment Plants
• Makino Aquatic Centre
• All Council vehicles
• All Water Treatment Plants and Pumping Stations

As a workplace we provide a quit smoking support program for staff who wish to stop.

Kind Regards

There is only one recorded complaint regarding overhanging trees that relate to the property at 40 Tiritoa Terrace. The complaint was received on 6th October 2017 and referred to trees overhanging the Council berm. The trees were cut back by the owners of the trees following contact by Council staff.
We can also confirm Council received a call from a person regarding trees growing on the property at 40 Tiritoa Terrace Feilding that were overhanging their section. As the trees were growing on private property and overhanging another private property the complainant was advised that it was a civil matter between the two property owners. It was suggested to the complainant that they contact the owner of the trees prior to taking civil action to see if the matter could be resolved.
As this was a general query no formal details were taken including the date the query was made. However MDC staff do recall that the complainant was referring to trees on 40 Tiritoa terrace and they recall looking the property up at the time.

In response to your enquiry, we have found three complaints regarding noise registered in the last 12 months.

28 Aug 2019 - 2009hrs   Complaint received that the occupants of 16 Russell Street were mowing their lawns after 8pm. Guard visited but noted the transaction as No Noise
21 Jul 2019 – 1025hrs     Complaint received that there was machinery noise (described as a variety of saws) coming from 16 Russell St, Guard attended and advised No Noise
20 Jul 2019 – 1214hrs     Complaint received that there was loud machinery noise coming from 16 Russell St, been going all day, Caller believed it was some type of saw, Guard attended, Noted transaction as No Noise

There have been no other complaints during the last twelve month period

The library, Makino Aquatic Centre and council office order their paper cups separately using 2 suppliers i.e. Gilmours and OfficeMax.

I have based the number of cups (both coffee and water) purchased on the expenditure as unfortunately, the number of cups ordered has not been recorded on the separate purchase orders.

The paper cups we use are biodegradable and we stopped using Just Water plastic cups in January 2019 because they are not biodegradable.

In the last financial year we spent $1,660-68 on paper cups and we pay $97-00 per 1000 cups (depending on what type of cup) therefore we went through approximately 17,000 cups across council.

Our Sustainability Team has plans to do a review of our small good procurement to see where we can make more sustainable purchases. This will include both water and coffee cups.

Copy of letter left at reception for collection:
25 February 2016

James Beard
P O Box 1260
Palmerston North

Dear James
RE: Your meeting with Council staff
We acknowledge your recent meeting with myself and our senior policy planner Cynthia Ward on 16 February 2016.

Prior to our meeting you had expressed some concerns with Mayor Margaret Kouvelis who suggested it would be helpful for you to speak to Council staff.

We understood your concerns are:
 The inappropriate urbanisation of rural land at Kelvin Grove/ Whakarongo
 Rural land should not be part of Palmerston North City Council because –
        PNCC have more rural land then they need
 PNCC don’t understand rural matters e. g, management and maintenance of water tables and berms (like outside your property)
 Rural land ending up being developed by ‘land-bankers’
 Land-bankers/developers are not good for PNCC/MDC as they have land ‘checker-boarded’ around the edge of the city which they may seek to re-zone for urban purposes. This  affects rates for rural landowners and the profitability of farming. 

We note you own a 36ha property on Kelvin Grove Road which is situated within the Palmerston North City Council.

You indicated to us a desire to have Cameron Bagrie  an ANZ Economist to address the issue of land-banking and the adverse effects of these practices for Councils.  We understand you heard him speak at “Rural University”, Stratford, some time ago.  You said you have spoken to him about his capacity to speak on this topic and that he advised you he would be available to speak to a ‘forum’.

Mayor Margaret Kouvelis will receive a copy of this letter which summarises your concerns.

Yours sincerely
Sandra Crosbie
Communications Officer

In response to your request dated 9 August 2019 regarding the number of communication staff and the budgets, the following are your questions and the responses.  For the purposes of the response the current reporting year is only 1.5 months and has been excluded from the response.
1. How many public relations and/or communications employees staff were employed* by your council for the periods**:
a. currently; 
b. in the last financial year;
c. in each of the previous four financial years; 
2018/19 2017/18 2016/17 2015/16
2 2 2 2

2. How many public relations and/or communications contractors or consultants or providers of comms/PR professional services were engaged by your council;
a. broken down as per same periods in  Q1
2018/19 2017/18 2016/17 2015/16
nil nil nil 1
The single engagement in 2015/16 was to produce a single strategy options report.
3. What was the total salary budget for employed staff, broken down for same periods in Q1?
2018/19 2017/18 2016/17 2015/16
- - - -
Because of the limited number of staff in the communications role it would be possible to identify individual salaries.  Council will not be releasing figures relating to salary. This information is being withheld under section 7 (2) (a) of the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987.  If you disagree with the Councils decision to withhold this information you may make a complaint to the ombudsman under section 27 of the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987.
4. What was the total salary/fee/etc budget for contractors or consultants or providers of professional services.
2018/19 2017/18 2016/17 2015/16
N/A N/A N/A N/A

 
5. How much were these staff paid broken down by salary band?
a. broken down as per same periods in  Q1
2018/19 2017/18 2016/17 2015/16
N/A N/A N/A N/A

6. How much were contractors, consultants,  providers of professional services paid broken down by salary band?
a. broken down as per same periods in  Q1
2018/19 2017/18 2016/17 2015/16
N/A N/A N/A N/A

7. Where contractors, consultants etc were paid by project, please specify the total cost of such projects
a. broken down as per same periods in  Q1
b. Noting any projects that cost the council more than $100,000
2018/19 2017/18 2016/17 2015/16
nil nil nil $1,487

8. How much in total did the council spend on advertising, public relations/comms campaigns or publications in the last financial year?
2018/19 2017/18 2016/17 2015/16
$27,031 $32,334 $38,119 $14,422
The majority of the amounts above were spent on compliance advertising (classified adverts) and regular stakeholder engagement (bi-weekly page in local paper).
a. How does this compare to the cost of this in the previous four financial years?
See above figures

In response to your request, below, we confirm that Manawatu District council has had no financial transactions with the New Zealand Drug Foundation.

We had no budget for the new website. We completed the project using internal resource and upgrading our old website to a new version, which incurred no extra costs.

1 DEM data - I have been in contact with Andrew Steffert from Horizons Regional Council and it seems that he has provided you with the 2018 Dense Match data, which is a comprehensive dataset, covering the whole study area.
2 Our District plan is available on our website:
In terms of the District Plan layers, I’ve included the following files:
a. Zoning
b. Overlays
c. Designations
d. Conservation Areas
3 Heritage Places are identified in our District Plan (Appendix 1) and (Schedule 4a) and I provide them in the following files.
a. HeritageFeilding - Schedule4a
b. Wetland_SAs - Appendix 1A & 1B (Please note that the supplementary lists are not mapped)
c. HeritageOther – Appendix 1E
d. ArcheologicalSites – Appendix 1F
(This is not cross referenced with the Heritage NZ list.)
4 Notable trees – From our District Plan
a. Trees – Appendix 1D
5 Landuse
a. Property_Landuse
A file of valuation areas with associated land use as from our valuations database.
6 Hazardous Sites – An extract from our Hazardous Activities and Industries List (HAIL)
7 Iwi Information – We do not hold extensive Iwi information. Statutory Acknowledgements of the Crown have been made and are referred to in our District Plan document. To assist you in identifying some of the sites and areas, I include 2 files (Iwi_AreasOfInterest and StatutoryAcknowledgement). They might not be comprehensive and should be treated as such.
8 Flood data – Our District Plan has 2 Zones related to Flood data (Flood Channel 1 and Flood Channel 2) and is provided as part of the District plan zones.
Further Flood data should be sourced from Horizons Regional Council.
I hope this could help you identify a suitable site.
Should you have any queries in this regard, please feel free to contact me.

I have received your request for information regarding the number of Infringement notices issued by Council Parking wardens or other staff in relation to un-licenced motor vehicles.

I can confirm for you that Manawatu District Council do not have authorised parking wardens and are not warranted to issue parking tickets for any parking offence, including offences involving the licencing or registration of vehicles.

Therefore no infringement notices have been issued in regards to un-licenced or un-registered motor vehicles by staff at Manawatu District Council.