Coast council faces ‘challenging’ year
From local democracy reporter Brendon McMahon:
The West Coast Regional Council faces "another very challenging year," according to Risk and Assurance Committee chairman Frank Dooley.
The committee met on Tuesday for five-and-a-half hours as it received an update on the council's investment portfolio, got a closed door briefing on the draft 2022 annual report, endorsed a health and safety charter and teased out a schedule of workshops for the forthcoming annual plan.
The council also has received tens of millions of dollars for 'shovel ready' projects and other publicly funded infrastructure projects to clear and show progress on in the coming year.
Councillors workshopped the 2022 annual report for about three hours
and it will be adopted next week at the first formal council meeting of the year.
Dooley thanked council staff for their work to get it over the line and under pressure.
"It's really comforting to know we're going to be able to sign-off next week. I know it's six weeks behind our statutory deadline, but there's nothing we can do about it."
An earlier briefing by council investment portfolio advisers J B Were explained the rationale of having a diversified portfolio both domestically and internationally.
Dooley said the presentation was good from a risk perspective and explained the benefits of a diversified portfolio, although the council had a responsibility "to keep oversight".
He had asked management to also present a profile of the council's liabilities in the coming months.
The council had previously been briefed mid-year on liabilities, currently $12.25m.
J B Were advisers told the council the focus was on spreading risk, over-riding the tendency for investors to just focus on returns, hence a diverse portfolio held by the council.
The past three years had been particularly challenging with inflationary pressure in the international and domestic economy but the portfolio had rendered a "reasonable" return of 11.5% in that period; the performance benchmark was 6%.
Returns should be better over the next year, advisers said.
In the past, the regional council has used the investment portfolio to subsidise its activities in lieu of rates — with the average drawdown, until two years ago, being $350,000 every six months, or $2.8m in total.
*Public interest journalism funded through NZ On Air
⚠️ DOGS DIE IN HOT CARS. If you love them, don't leave them. ⚠️
It's a message we share time and time again, and this year, we're calling on you to help us spread that message further.
Did you know that calls to SPCA about dogs left inside hot cars made up a whopping 11% of all welfare calls last summer? This is a completely preventable issue, and one which is causing hundreds of dogs (often loved pets) to suffer.
Here are some quick facts to share with the dog owners in your life:
👉 The temperature inside a car can heat to over 50°C in less than 15 minutes.
👉 Parking in the shade and cracking windows does little to help on a warm day. Dogs rely on panting to keep cool, which they can't do in a hot car.
👉 This puts dogs at a high risk of heatstroke - a serious condition for dogs, with a mortality rate between 39%-50%.
👉 It is an offence under the Animal Welfare Act to leave a dog in a hot vehicle if they are showing signs of heat stress. You can be fined, and prosecuted.
SPCA has created downloadable resources to help you spread the message even further. Posters, a flyer, and a social media tile can be downloaded from our website here: www.spca.nz...
We encourage you to use these - and ask your local businesses to display the posters if they can. Flyers can be kept in your car and handed out as needed.
This is a community problem, and one we cannot solve alone. Help us to prevent more tragedies this summer by sharing this post.
On behalf of the animals - thank you ❤️
Poll: Would you rather: Christmas in summer forever or winter forever?
Just a bit of a fun poll to get you thinking.
If you had to live out your Christmas days, would you prefer it was a summer Christmas or a winter Christmas?
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62.2% Summer
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36.4% Winter
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1.5% Other - I'll share below
Worst Xmas ever?
There's a a lot of planning that goes into Christmas day and sometimes things just don't go to plan. But it can be a good thing - a family mishap or hilarious memory that you can laugh about in Christmases to come.
Whether you burnt the dinner or were stranded at an airport...
Share your Christmas mishaps below!
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