'Arrogant’ call for grant

Press, 11 July 1980, Page 10

'Arrogant’ call for grant

The Redwood Action Committee was “brazenly arrogant” to ask the Metropolitan Refuse Disposal Committeen for $5OOO, the refuse committee’s chairman (Mr J. M. McKenzie) has said. The action committee, which has applied for a grant to help cover costs in opposing the controversial Styx Mill Road transfer station site, should get “not one cent,” Mr McKenzie said. The action committee’s chairman (Mr B. A. Le Fevre) said yesterday the refuse committee was morally obliged to compensate objectors faced with the cost of a rehearing over the site. The refuse committee had been responsible for an illegal requirement which led to the first hearing being declared null and void, said Mr Le Fevre. The action committee had so far spent about $6500 in opposing the site, and the

grant sought, would cover fees for consultants to be recalled at the second hearing, he said. A $5OOO contribution from the refuse committee would also prove it was prepared to honour past promises that the interests of residents in the Redwood area would be safeguarded by their elected representatives, Mr Le Fevre said.

Mr McKenzie said that although the metropolitan committee would decide on the grant, “I personally will be very strongly opposed to it.” He accused the action committee of making “nonfactual and emotional” representations which had caused delays and added extra cost to the metropolitan scheme. The opponents to the transfer station site had “ridiculed the committee and opposed every move made in the interests of the public at large,” Mr McKenzie said. He disputed whether the site requirement could be

called illegal. The Waimairi County decision to rule the first hearing null and void was legally arguable, but the committee had decided not to “waste” ratepayers’ money by taking the issue to court.

Legal counsel for the action committee had raised the legality of the requirement during the first hearing ,and Mr McKenzie questioned why the objectors had then not withdrawn from the hearing.

“I find it strange they should cry crocodile tears, supposedly $5OOO later,” he said. The action committee had failed to discuss practical alternatives when discussions had been arranged with the metropolitan committee’s technical staff three years ago. Mr McKenzie said the action committee’s attitude to the staff had been “belligerent.” Even computer time had been made available to process traffic data, but the

committee had “used it to prepare a case against us, instead of a basis for discussion with us,” he said. Mr Le Fevre said the action committee had always tried to be constructive. It had withdrawn from talks with the technical staff because its comments were receiving a “shallow hearing,” he said. “They were simply trying to convince us on the basis of the M.R.C.’s evidence,” he said. It had been up to the Waimairi County hearings committee to establish the legal status of the refuse committee’s requirement, not the action committee, Mr Le Fevre said. An independent legal opinion had been sought before the submission of the committee’s counsel on that • point had been upheld, he ■ said. Mr McKenzie had to “look at the real world,” Mr Le Fevre said. - i