Sparse meeting minutes irk STDC

South Taranaki District Council is to ask one of its neighbours for more detail in the minutes from joint committee meetings.

At Monday’s full council meeting, councillor Mark Bellringer baulked at being asked to receive the sparsely worded minutes of the Taranaki Solid Waste Committee on November 9 and the Regional Transport Committee from December 7, both hosted by the Taranaki Regional Council (TRC).

He said the minutes, circulated to keep the region’s three district councils abreast of committee business, lacked detail about what took place.

“Minutes are supposed to be informative about the meeting,” Bellringer said. “I would like to urge all councillors not to accept these minutes, I urge the mayor to stand up and say these minutes need to be improved astronomically. Send them back, ask for more information.”

“I second that motion,” added councillor Celine Filbee.

The minutes for the Taranaki Solid Waste Management Committee showed the meeting was attended by 13 people and lasted 65 minutes. Including half a page taken up by names of the attendees, the outcome of the four matters discussed was covered in two pages.

Minutes for the Regional Transport Committee showed 18 people attended the meeting on December 7, which lasted two hours and seven minutes. The nine items raised in the meeting were covered across five pages of minutes.

Council chief executive Fiona Aitken said the minutes in question did meet the minimum legal requirement.

“They are slightly below verbatim,” mayor Phil Nixon said. “We’re not happy because we are not learning anything from these minutes.”

He said the council had approached the TRC in the past about the amount of detail provided.

“We could formally ask them for more detail in the minutes so we can understand what actually happened in the meetings,” councillor Racquel Cleaver-pittams suggested.

Bryan Roach, who attended the meetings in question, said plenty of discussion took place. “I’m in support of us asking TRC to be more forthcoming with what’s in the minutes. There were a lot of questions floating back and forth,” he said. He was reluctant to take his own notes in case they were different to the official records.

Councillor Steffy Mackay suggested Nixon bring the issue up at the Taranaki Mayoral Forum. “How do New Plymouth and Stratford feel about this?”

Nixon agreed to raise the minutes matter with his fellow mayors, and the council voted to write to the TRC as well.