\u00a0\u201cIf you say nothing, nothing happens.\u201d<\/p>\n
That sentiment motivated Residents Association of Omarama\u00a0chairman Stephen Grundy to pen a letter to the Ahuriri Community Board asking for support in advocating for the town.<\/p>\n
Mr Grundy wrote the letter on behalf of the association to \u201cexpress concerns about any proposal to reduce ratepayer-funded services in Omarama\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast month, the [Waitaki District ] Council determined rates would rise by 16.9% for the new financial year,\u201d it read.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn addition, councillors instructed staff to find further savings with chief executive Alex Parmley saying this would impact the level of service the council could provide.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs an association we have spent months lobbying for the council to spend the rates it has collected from Omarama ratepayers on the amenities it has committed to providing.\u201d<\/p>\n
He highlighted overflowing rubbish bins, run-down signs at the entrances of the town and the poor state of footpaths as key concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn each of these instances the present state of affairs reflects badly on the image of our town to residents and visitors alike, and it also reflects badly on the Waitaki district as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Grundy told the Oamaru Mail the association\u2019s message to council was \u201cdo something now, please\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe made it known that we didn\u2019t want there to be a reduction in services because we\u2019re feeling that things haven\u2019t been maintained.\u201d<\/p>\n
He signed off his letter to the community board as being from \u201cthe forgotten town at the edge of the universe\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know we\u2019re a long way from Oamaru and I personally think it\u2019s a factor, but it shouldn\u2019t be, really.\u201d<\/p>\n
Omarama sits about halfway between Queenstown and Christchurch.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou get traffic going both ways.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the point where the tourist buses stop and people get out and you think, \u2018This is the welcome to Omarama\u00a0 \u2026\u00a0broken footpaths, flooded gutters and overflowing rubbish bins.\u2019 It\u2019s not a good look.\u201d<\/p>\n
While he acknowledged there were a number of issues facing the council, the association had\u00a0to look after\u00a0its residents.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven though all those things are going on, we need to say something because if we don\u2019t say something, they won\u2019t know that we\u2019re not happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The association had been campaigning for \u201cquite a few years\u201d about the signs, which had slowly deteriorated in the intense sun.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re all cracking and barely readable and the colours have all gone.\u201d<\/p>\n
The association would \u201crather see them gone\u201d if replacements were going to take a while.<\/p>\n
Mr Grundy said while rubbish was \u201ca complex thing\u201d, the\u00a0town\u2019s small bins were not\u00a0working.<\/p>\n
\u201cBins are getting full. People are putting their rubbish on the ground;\u00a0it\u2019s blowing around.\u201d<\/p>\n
It had been nearly a decade since the council had completed any major fixes on the footpaths, Mr Grundy said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did go to the council and ask when they spent some significant money on footpaths and their response was 2017, 2018 \u2014\u00a0we\u2019re coming up to 10 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you look in our statement for where our rates go, there\u2019s a beautiful chart that says your money goes to all these different areas and in three different places, footpaths are mentioned.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow can we go for 10 years with none of the money being spent on footpaths, or very little?\u201d<\/p>\n
The association did its own survey of the footpaths.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got on our bicycles and surveyed 7km of footpaths.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
\u00a0They took 130 photographs of defects.<\/p>\n
And the poor upkeep of the footpaths was affecting residents in Omarama.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of the things you can do in a town like Oamaru\u00a0you can\u2019t do here.<\/p>\n
\u201cKids here don\u2019t have scooters because\u00a0where do you ride them?\u201d<\/p>\n
Age Concern in Omarama had also shared concerns about the elderly population using the footpaths, Mr Grundy said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow safe is it to walk down the footpath without tripping over a pothole or a raised part of the footpath?<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are just\u00a0basic requirements of having a good footpath.\u201d<\/p>\n
A council report from May disagreed with the findings of the association.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of overall condition in Omarama, all footpaths are considered to be in good condition,\u201d a council spokesman said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of the faults identified within those footpaths, most are considered to be in fair condition, with those being in poor and very poor condition identified.\u201d<\/p>\n
The timing for any work on the footpaths in Omarama was yet to be confirmed, the spokesman said.<\/p>\n
The council was also manufacturing new signage for the district, with installation slated for \u201clater this year\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will have more information then but can confirm they are the detailed corten steel option, and quotes came in within budget.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Mr Grundy\u2019s letter was presented to the community board, it formally requested a report from council staff on waste management in Omarama as well as proposing footpath remediation.<\/p>\n
Waitaki District Mayor Mel Tavendale \u00a0said\u00a0it was important to \u201cmake sure we\u2019re not going backwards\u201d in terms of council services.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe service level discussion when you\u2019re trying to find savings within the budgets is a really problematic one because there\u2019s no easy fix.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe certainly do our best to share services around and I think there is certainly some work to be done in Omarama.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe understand that and we\u00a0need to be continuing to work towards that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The long-term plan discussions were a key part of addressing these issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we\u2019re working through some of our long-term plan budgeting conversations, we need to be trying to find the balance between what our community is asking for and what we can afford.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do need to look at how we can find sustainable funding sources moving forward so we can still actually get the level of service our community wants.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s where we\u2019ve got to put a process around it because this is a conversation that is going to play out in every one of our communities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Grundy said he was hopeful short-term measures would be taken.<\/p>\n
However, a long-term solution would depend on how other local government reforms would turn out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0\u201cIf you say nothing, nothing happens.\u201d That sentiment motivated Residents Association of Omarama\u00a0chairman Stephen Grundy to pen a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":598446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-598445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}