Aratoi bribe action still being probed
The jury remains out as to whether Masterton district councillor Brent Goodwin will face disciplinary action for trying to bribe an Aratoi worker.
Aratoi director Marcus Boroughs has laid a formal complaint, accusing Mr Goodwin and other councillors Roddy McKenzie and Chris Peterson of intimidating the temporary female worker at a meeting at Café Strada.
Mr Boroughs said the girl had arranged to meet Mr McKenzie to talk about a temporary job on his Mauriceville farm and first assumed the other two men were farm workers.
Mr Goodwin has admitted he offered the worker free movie tickets in exchange for "accurate" visitor counts at Aratoi, and has also claimed full responsibility for the approach, stressing the other two councillors are innocent.
Mr Boroughs wrote: "To suggest that visitor numbers could be traded for movie tickets is bribery.
"The Wairarapa Cultural Trust not only objects to this behaviour and lays a formal complaint about this matter but it also wishes to hear from the Masterton District Council in regard to what disciplinary action it will be taking with the three councillors concerned."
Mayor Garry Daniell told the Times-Age on Friday that there were two opposing points of view as to what happened and the issue had to be worked through before any disciplinary measures could be looked at.
"The question of disciplinary action is not on the horizon at this stage."
Asked if he would be apologising, Mr Goodwin said: "No, absolutely not. And I will continue to try to find a whistleblower to expose the lie of their visitor numbers."
Mr Goodwin also said he had been "totally unapologetic" when Mayor Daniell had first shown him the letter, sent two days after the June 17 meeting at Strada.
Councillor Edwin Perry said he was "flabbergasted" to hear Mr Goodwin had tried to offer the tickets.
"I'm disappointed that he would do that. I think he should at least apologise - he's apologised to me whenever we're had a scuffle, and I think he's man enough to apologise now."
Mr Perry said his former Government party leader Winston Peters would have demanded his resignation had he been in the same situation - "and as far as I'm concerned this is the same arena".
Councillor Jeff Workman said after an audit committee meeting it was thought there was "a potential" reported visitor numbers at Aratoi could be inaccurate.
"That is now going to be looked at in the service contract."
Mr Workman said Mr Goodwin's approach "could be construed as bribery. As a council we need to find out the accuracy of the numbers. Brent's keen to do that but I would have done it a different way."
