Awaiting response

Hi Robin

Anthony Brien responding. As I am not a member of Team Timaru, therefore can only address your first and second question.

Q 1. I have attended Timaru Council meetings in the past and am an experienced Director having spent many years on Board both in New Zealand and overseas. I\'m not sure if the number of meetings is a critical point, but rather that those round the table deal professionally with the matters at hand.

Q.2 By \'aquatic spending\' I assume you are referring to the new pool (and not spending on all pools in the region) and therefore will address the matter as related to the new pool. If you are talking about total district aquatic spending please let me know.

Expenditure on any capital item under construction should be monitored as part of good governance practice and expenditure related to the new pool should be no exception. I understand that several contacts have been let and there are committments that the incoming council will have to live out - like it or not. But, of course any uncommitted yet planned expenditure should be carefully reviewed in light of what is ahead of us, and I will insist that this happens.

If you want to talk more about these topics Robin, or any other matters, you can contact me on 03 68 60275, or 027 623 7148 or email directly at anthony.brien@xtra.co.nz

Regards

Anthony

Awaiting response Over the past three yeard I have attended the monthly Council Meetings on at least twelve occasions.

I presume the question on aquatic spending relates to the planned Caroline Bay Aquatic Centre. If elected I would support a review of the plan as I feel that it should have been kept within the budgeted 15 million and not the proposed 23.5 million. Extras such as a gymnasium, creche and cafe are not required.

Thank you for your questions Robin.

I\'m not a member of Team Timaru and have no affiliation with them.

In terms of Council meetings, I have never attended any. But what I have done is extensively read meeting agendas, minutes, the Long Term Council Community Plan (on which I made a submission), and many other Council documents. Yes, it would have been nice to have attended a meeting or too before being nominated, but working a busy full time job, I just didn\'t find the time.

Although I disagree with both the cost of the Aquatic Centre and the way the public submission phase was handled, I have pledged to see the Aquatic Centre completed. I feel that if the spending was reviewed at this late stage then it could possibly jeopardise the project altogether, which would be an absolute disaster. For that reason I would not support reviewing the Aquatic Centre spending.

Regards,

Andrew