Ombudsman finds in favour of ratepayers | Wairarapa News | Local News in Wairarapa

Carterton District councillors  are left wiping egg off their faces after an
Ombudsman's ruling in favour of a petition against  a planned $6 million
town hall.

The council rejected  the  2000-strong petition last year to force a referendum on the construction of the Events Centre because it said 500 names were doubled up, were people under  18 years of age or who lived outside the district. Despite protests
from the  organisers,  Carterton Residents and Ratepayers, the council
refused to supply the names  because of privacy concerns.

 The Ombudsman has rejected the council's  reasons and ordered that the
500 names be revealed to the group.

The group's chairman, Ross Wither, said that, while it was too late to force a referendum on the Events Centre _ due to begin construction next month _ it was important that the council's ``thin excuse'' was exposed.

``It means that council was wrong, like so many organisations that seem to hide behind the Privacy Act or say it doesn't fit the criteria of official information. We have been vindicated  ...   We knew right from the beginning we were never going to change the
council's mind. Even if we got 100 per cent of the voters signing on the petition, the council was unlikely to listen.''

The group would now look through  the 500 names and call each person to
see  whether they agreed with the council's belief that they were ``invalid''. Mr Wither said the big sticking point was that, even if 500 names were invalid, the petition
showed   about a third of Carterton's 4000 residents felt the project was too
expensive.

 Carterton District Council chief executive Colin Wright said it did not matter how many people had signed the petition because a quarter of the names were invalid.

 ``We had concerns they were effectively asking for names of people not on the electoral roll, so they were effectively asking for the names of people breaking the law, but the Ombudsman has accepted there was an issue there and council has
provided those names.''