The former Bunnings building in Te Awamutu will house Waipā’s new museum.
Waipā residents are being asked to help fund a $27 million museum in Te Awamutu – but there is no legal agreement in place to actually house the significant collection it is being created for.
For several weeks The News has sought information from the council and the Te Awamutu Museum Trust about the plans for Te Ara Wai.
We have no doubt that there is goodwill and that the trust intends to see the collection it owns in the new building.
But at $27 million, we expect more than an assurance from the chair of the trust, which is basically all the council has.
The trust was established in 1987 to care for the collection originally held in the name of the Te Awamutu Historic Society on behalf of the community. It has no obligation to report publicly. The funding to care for its collection comes from the Waipā District Council and ratepayers pay for the collection to be looked after. The council museum staff comprises seven full and part time staff. The council’s website says the collection “remains in community hands under the auspices of the Te Awamutu Museum Trust Board”.
Council appoints members to the trust – but the trust meets rarely and our questions have already exposed a situation which culminated in a councillor being told he had not been a trust member for several years – even though he had still been receiving trust emails.
Waipā district councillors who have sat as members of a trust which plans to hand over the collection, voted as councillors to spend $27 million housing it.
Susan O’Regan
To quote a line from mayor Susan O’Regan from a meeting last year when we raised questions about an old boys’ network – it’s all a bit cosy.
Our questions about the situation have riled the council and led to suggestions The News is intent on undermining the Te Ara Wai project – or is engaged in an attack on chair Dean Taylor because he is the editor of a rival newspaper. Our questions have also coincided with a trust briefing for councillors – and one councillor, Roger Gordon, asking the same questions we posed.
We believe our questions, and raising issues, will ensure the project goes ahead as intended. That is what a real newspaper does.
Housing the collection is something this newspaper endorses and supports as is learning about the New Zealand Land War battles that shaped the region and country.
Ratepayers should have the comfort of a formal agreement, not a verbal undertaking given by one person, that the collection will be made available.
We welcome the council’s statement to us this week they now intend to put a legal agreement in place with the trust covering future arrangements for the collection.
We suggest any organisation which is asked to help fund this project would expect nothing less.
