A major scrap has broken out between councillors over the proposed Southern Link, with the latest move being an attempt to remove Eric Davy as chair of the regional transport committee.
Five councillors, understood to be led by Luke Acland and Matt Lawrey, have signed a Notice of Motion attempting to remove Eric from his chairmanship and replace him with deputy chair Ruth Copeland.
It comes hard on the heels of Matt blasting mayor Rachel Reese and Eric for sitting on an NZTA focus group during its investigation of the Southern Link and not telling other councillors.
“Their failure to tell the rest of the council and the public of their involvement shows a lack of transparency and openness,” Matt wrote in a press release yesterday.
The Notice of Motion could be heard at the next full council meeting on December 17.
Rachel says the concerns raised by Matt are wide of the mark and that the community isn’t interested in “political tantrums”.
“I’ll put it down to a first time councillor getting to grips with politics. Its’ a learning process, it takes time to understand.”
The notice of motion is directed at councillor Davy for his alleged role in stopping NZTA speaking with members of the Guardians of Victory lobby group. But Rachel says there was nothing wrong with the contact he made with NZTA.
“An NZTA representative has been very clear and has no concerns whatsoever with that contact.
What was said was, if you’re going to be speaking with community groups, there are other communities that would want a say and that is entirely appropriate. It’s an example of a good relationship.”
She says members of the community will have the opportunity to have their say at one of the next three stages in the investigation of the Southern Link project.
“Debate will start at the right time, I have confidence in the process that NZTA are running.”
Rachel says she hadn’t had an opportunity to fully investigate the notice of motion but that she was surprised to hear of it. “It’s unusual to see one directed at a colleague. But emotions are high on this particular issue and this confirms that.”
Matt says that, given the high level of sensitivity around the issue, he was stunned that the mayor and councillor Davy didn’t tell other councillors of their involvement.
“It undermines the whole process, particularly as both the mayor and councillor Davy campaigned on building the Southern Link at the last election.”
Matt says this “lack of transparency” is highlighted by the fact that Tasman District Council’s representative on the focus group, Trevor Norriss, did not keep his membership a secret.
