LGOIMA Requests

*How many residential pools are there within the Manawatu District Council region?
346
*What is the charge for a pool inspection?
$84 Inc GST
*What is the fine for a failed pool inspection?
If a pool fails an inspection a notice to fix may be issued, failing to comply with the notice to fix may incur a $500 infringement
*How many pool inspections have taken place since the new rules came into force in 2017?
220 inspections have been completed
*How many failed pool inspections have there been since the new rules came into force in 2017?
98 failed initial inspections

*How many fines/charges have been imposed because inspectors couldn't access the property for an inspection since the new rules came into force in 2017?
Nil

*How much money has the council collected in inspection fees since the new rules came into force in 2017?
$11963.91

*How much money has the council collected in failed pool inspection fines/fees since the new rules came into force in 2017?
Nil, no infringements issued

*How many children have drowned in residential pools and spas since the new rules came into force in 2017?
Manawatu District Council do not hold stats on drowning deaths.

Morning Jimmy,

There are only two documents that relates to the Ministers announcement.  The minister met with Michael Ford and Richard Templer and others on Monday 2 December 2019 and followed up with the attached letter from Minister Parkers office.  The other document is the GHD report which we believe has been provided to you previously (If not we can provide).

Cheers

Paul

Hi Hadyn,

Here is the information as requested for the consenting of BC 127936 for 6 Peka Road.  The consent application was for a wool shed designed for sheep shearing and covered yard. The value of the building work was stated as $170,000. The building structure was 39.8m x 16.4m – a large building which was an engineered design. The design engineer was not a registered engineer.

The engineering component of the consent application was peer reviewed in accordance with our BCA procedures by GHD (our consulting engineers).  This is standard with many medium to small sized councils as there is often not in house expertise.  Mr Baker has been aware throughout the process of the non-compliances and our fees and charges state the engineering review is at actual cost.

Council’s regulatory manager had a meeting at our offices Mr Baker on 17 July 2019 to discuss his concerns about the charges for the engineering review. He was advised that the manager would investigate the process and respond to him.
The manager received a summary of the compliance issues relating to the design from the reviewing engineer and copies of the RFI email trail between building officer, peer review engineer and applicant’s engineer.

The following list includes the dates that I have responded to Mr Baker:
+  19/7/2019 – email to J Baker explaining requests for information from the engineer.
+  23/7/2019 – email response to J Baker confirming Council’s position as stated in the initial email
+  23/7/2019 – email response to J Baker advising the invoice is a record of the ‘account’ and also   attached a record of the time spent on the consent by the reviewing engineer from the Council system.
+  25/7/2019 – email response to J Baker explaining council process and advising that he seek recompense from his own engineer.
+  5/12/2019 – email response to J Baker to reconfirm council’s position, that the charges are justified and payment is due.
+  6/12/2019 – email response to J Baker attaching 2 reports form the council consent processing system for consent time recording and RFI detailed report.

Attached is a copy of all correspondence referred to above, reports and invoice provided to J Baker. The review engineer charge out rate is typical of the rates for this service and is the same or similar to other councils.

In summary, we are required by law to assess the design for compliance.

The design of this building was not in accordance with an acceptable solution under the building code and required engineering peer review.

The design documentation in the application did not demonstrate compliance with the building code and took significant time and effort to reach a compliant design.
The Council invoice format is standardised in terms of officer rates and hours but Mr Baker has also been sent further reports detailing the time allocated in the system and extent of the RFI information.

Attachements:
E-mail communications with Mr Baker
Engineer summary and RFI emails

1. How many incidents of verbal and physical abuse against council staff were recorded in 2019
6 incidents were recorded

2. What roles were the affected staff employed in, and what activity were they involved in at the time?
Library Experience Representatives – 2
Pool Attendants and Aquatics Experience Representatives – 3
Business Support Officer – 1

3. How many staff were injured and/or required medical attention?
None as they were all verbal abuse.

4. How many incidents were reported to police, and what was the outcome of any police investigations?
Two incidents reported to Police.  One trespass notice issued and one discussion with Police and parents over supervision.

5. Please provide an in depth description of each incident:
Aggressive customer at Front of House x 1
A customer at the front counter was very loud, persistent, abusive and acted inappropriately towards an MDC employee.

Aggressive customer at Makino Aquatic Centre x 3
A family entered the complex and were served by the staff.  Staff member advised what lanes were available at the time swimming and the adult started to yell and was aggressive to the staff.   The adult yelled that they shouldn’t have to pay to use the facilities.   They did end up paying for the children to swim.

A trespassed person managed to enter the facility before being spotted by staff and asked to leave.  They left and then came back shortly later and verbally abused the staff.

A customer had an argument with a number of other customers over a ball.  The customer then threatened to stab the other customers with the pocket knife in her bag.  The staff intervened and were then verbally abused by the customer.  An adult was called to come and take the customer home.

Aggressive customer at Feilding Public Library x 2
An adult was upset that programme attendees received a free coffee and became abusive to the attendees.  The manager stepped in and asked the adult to leave the building.  The adult continued to be abusive towards the manager who advised they would be trespassed if they did not leave.  

Adult was asked to take their McDonalds food outside.  The adult then started being verbally abusive and accused the staff member of being racist.  They then approached the multicultural group and told them they were racist and lucky they could have a free coffee.

6. Is the incidence of abuse increasing or decreasing?
Less than last year

7. What steps do the council taking to ensure staff are safe from abuse at work?
All reported instances of significance are investigated, and appropriate action taken to ensure staff safety, minimise reoccurrence risk and to ensure the staff member is appropriately support. MDC has a Managing Aggressive and Threatening Situations Policy, and we regularly run training for staff.

1) Does your Council protect trees in its District Plan using Section 76 of the Resource Management Act? Yes

2)  What term does Council use to describe trees protected within the District Plan? Councils use terms such Notable, Heritage and Significant. Manawatu District Plan refers to trees protected within the District Plan as “Trees with Heritage Value”

3) What evaluation process or method does Council use to determine whether trees are of sufficient importance to be protected within the District Plan? Manawatu District Council has not undertaken any Plan Changes related to Trees since 2002 when the Manawatu District Plan was made operative. However, a survey and assessment of Trees with Heritage value in the Manawatu District was undertaken by John Wakeling in 2018, this assessment used STEM to assess trees. STEM will be utilised by Council going forward.

4) If your Council uses the Standard Tree Evaluation Methodology (STEM), does it differ at all from the original 1996 mode and if so how? The 2018 report by John Wakeling uses the 1996 STEM mode.

5) If your Council uses STEM what is the threshold STEM score used to determine whether a tree should be protected in the District Plan? If your Council has no record of the STEM threshold last used, please supply the lowest STEM score for a District Plan protected tree. The 2018 report by John Wakeling uses the STEM threshold of 150 points or more.

6) If your Council uses another method or process to protect trees what is the threshold score for inclusion and/or any other requirement?

7) Is a landowner's consent required to protect a trees under any circumstances? If yes, please explain? District Plan provisions relating to trees have not been reviewed since the original plan was made operative in 2002, Council is unsure if any landowners consent was required to list the trees within the operative District Plan.

8)  Under which provisions of the District Plan are trees protected, Heritage, General, or something else? Chapter 4 Heritage

9) Are District Plan protected trees categorised within a list, if so what terms are used and how? The District Plan protected trees are listed with Appendix 1D of the Manawatu District Plan as Trees with Heritage Values.

10) What year did the protected trees provisions of your District Plan become operative? 2002

13) Please supply the position title, name and contact details for the person who deals with protected tree issues at Council? Kirk Lightbody – Policy Planner – kirk.lightbody@mdc.govt.nz

Dear Harry,
The responses to your questions relating to promoting the 2019 election are provided below.  We have not provided any information pre-dating 2016 as it would require a significant manual search and collation exercise.  Additionally, the costs are not broken down into the areas you have suggested for the reasons listed in our responses.  Your questions and the responses:
• The total amount spent by the Council that went into promoting the election, and increasing voter turnout - for every council election since 2000.
Response:  Not all of our election related promotional activities incurred an identifiable fiscal amount.  This includes items created for our social media and our fortnightly community paper page. The identified total costs are:
2016 2019
Campaign related Not known $3,327
Routine election promotional costs
(for LGNZ,  joint advertising,  rate inserts etc) $8,455 $9,839

Note: for 2016 elections there was considerable community interest in the candidates that resulted in a turnout that exceeded the national average.  Consequently majority of the promotion was done within existing channels and did not incur identifiable campaign costs.

• A breakdown of the spending that went into promoting the election and increasing voter turnout (e.g. through comms, publicity campaign, education campaign) - for every council election since 2000 (if the information exists. If it is too time-expensive, then can I request the information just for the 2016 & 2019 election).
Response:  The costs have been attributed to the communication general budget and not split into campaigns.  Note the figures are not available for 2016 without conducting a manual search.

• An outline of the strategy that was used by the Council to promote voting in this election.
Response: The strategy was to leverage off the information and campaign being run by LGNZ, to which we contribute as part of the routine costs.  This was augmented by local advertising on our regular channels to encourage voting, and promote citizen hosted events.

• A list of new initiatives thought up by the Council this year that would promote voter turnout and voter engagement.
Response: Given the saturation advertising on TV, radio and print media about the need to vote and key dates we focussed on promoting citizen meet-the-candidate events in the two wards, and co-hosting a combined (councillor and mayoral candidates) meet-the-candidate event that we live-streamed on Facebook and MDC  website.  Additionally at the same event we used an internet based (mobile and web) question collation platform to enable those watching, and unable to attend, to ask the candidates questions through the event MC . 
We also created a large ‘ballot box’ that was left in public places with relevant dates and allowed for questions or observations to be left – the weather did not allow this to be fully deployed as planned.

• Evidence of efforts made by the Council to encourage and increase voter engagement e.g. a "meet the candidates" event, a Mayoral debate, working with local news outlets to increase election coverage.
Response:  see points made above.  Additionally the local media was proactive in sourcing interviews with newsworthy candidates that lifted community awareness of voting.