Aggrieved mooring owners are threatening to picket this morning's meeting of the Bay of Plenty Regional Council in protest at being denied speaking rights at the meeting.
The mooring owners raised concerns about issues over the BOPRC's management of the 499 moorings in Tauranga and the Eastern Bay at an earlier meeting in June this year.
Neville Harris is among the many mooring owners intending to picket a regional council meeting today.
At the public meeting owners alleged the sole mooring contractor was using the wrong type of chain on moorings.
They went directly to council in June because they were making no progress working with council staff, says mooring owner Neville Harris.
Today, Neville says they are still making little progress, and the request to speak to council about the lack of progress was declined, with the council stating in a letter that it is important the investigation be completed before any public discussion be entered into.
They are instead invited to the December meeting.
Nevellie says mooring owners were promised a copy of the mooring holders' survey undertaken in July, but have heard nothing from the regional council.
'We haven't seen a thing, so we have no confidence,” says Neville.
'It's now a picket. We won't even bother going into the meeting, more than likely we will get tossed out.”
The long promised investigation into the state of the moorings only started last week, says Neville.
'They treated us as a joke for a while. I don't know what the investigation they are doing involves. They only started looking last week. They got told June 6.”
Regional council chief executive Mary Anne Macleod says there were three separate applications to speak at today's the public forum. The mooring owners were dropped in favour of the others because the regional council is already aware of their issue and it is under investigation.
She says the mooring owners are welcome to add their new information to the ongoing investigation, and there is another opportunity to speak at the December meeting's public forum.
Check SunLive for a full report following the meeting.
3 comments
Mr Tank
Posted on 09-10-2013 12:34 | By Mr Tank
This issue has been slow burning for a while now. I'm glad to see it is now getting some attention. When the council gives a business a monopoly (such as this one) it needs to be extra vigilant in ensuring that monopoly is not abused. It needs take the concerns of those effected seriously. Good on the picketers for not taking this fob off lying down!
Needs looking at
Posted on 09-10-2013 16:49 | By FunandGames
This whole issue needs to be addressed, talk of an abuse of this monoply has been around for far to long now. Also the issue of people owning morings as an investment when they don't own a boat needs to be looked at.
Holders at fault
Posted on 09-10-2013 19:54 | By whoami
Moorings is a loss making business. It's not a case of it being a monopoly, it's a matter of there not being any suitable alternatives who are capable of supplying and installing fit for purpose components. The holders have a worse reputation than the contractor for the behaviour they engage in and no one would want to take on the job for that reason anyway.
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