National recognition for Martinborough Community Board

By Councillor Aidan Ellims

While last week’s Local Government NZ conference was in the headlines with topics around

infrastructure and spending, the event which was held on Thursday evening unfortunately received no coverage. This was the LGNZ Community Board Awards and Martinborough Community Board, and specifically Community Board member Angela Brown, received the “Partnering with Councils Award” for which a number of other community boards from across NZ competed.

This award was for the work Angela and MCB have carried out during the past year to build emergency resiliency throughout the Martinborough community and promote the Martinborough Community Emergency Hub.

Angela and MCB have successfully engaged with council, Wellington Regional Emergency … Continue Reading

Progress stalled on Pain Farm project

Martinborough Community Board has admitted the “progress” it has made to date in untangling the web of obfuscations created by South Wairarapa District Council with its management of the 85-hectare  Pain Estate has ground to a halt.

“Unfortunately,” said the four-member board in a short statement, “we have not made any real progress since out last update.” 

“We have requested a meeting with the CEO (Janice Smith) to discuss matters in person but this was declined as there was considered no new information available.”

The Community Board followed up by providing a list of questions with the request they be answered on or before its meeting on August 29. … Continue Reading

FROM THE MAYOR

By Martin Connelly

I spent part of the last week at the Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) annual conference. The 

conference got off to a rip-roaring start with the Prime-Minister berating councils for our “white elephants”, then telling us to “reign in the fantasies” and to get back to delivering the basics.

Following this, his Government stumped up $750,000 to go towards a World Dance Crew

Championship in Auckland, provided the council matched that amount. Go figure.

As you can imagine, a lot of locals got onto me about whether our Council had reigned in our expensive fantasies and gone “back to basics.” My normal answer was to ask them precisely what

non-essential expenditure they were thinking of. I got a lot of answers such as the million dollars to

Kuranui High School, a new dog pound, the new skate park in Greytown and a fair few others. … Continue Reading

Help dish out the Arts dosh

If you fit the criteria you can join a volunteer panel giving out funding for local artists: that’s the message from South Wairarapa District Council.

Don’t panic ratepayers: the putea to be distributed comes from the Creative NZ Creative Communities Scheme (CCS) _ via the government’s tax purse.

Four volunteers will be selected for the panel to help council distribute this funding for local arts (Ngā putea mo ngā toi o te haukainga) to young, upcoming and experienced artists in the South Wairarapa.

 Applicants will need to show clearly that they:

• celebrate diversity of artistic expression;

• desire to champion new artists as well as established ones;

• have a depth of experience and understanding of arts; … Continue Reading