A Rotorua district councillor has expressed concern about children growing up in motels next door to gang members and Australia s 501 deportees.
Some people in motels are in survival mode, Rotorua Lakes councillor Merepeka Raukawa-Tait says.
Photo: LDR / Rotorua Daily Post
Rotorua Lakes councillor Merepeka Raukawa-Tait made the comments at a council Strategy, Policy and Finance Committee meeting on Thursday as part of discussions surrounding a draft council plan to address community safety.
So-called 501 deportees are criminal New Zealand citizens deported from Australia.
They are named for the section of the Australian Immigration Act that allowed visas to be stripped from New Zealand residents who had disqualified themselves on character grounds.
A Rotorua Lakes Council meeting. (File photo).
Photo: Rotorua Daily Post / Andrew Warner via LDR
Rotorua Lakes Council will also consider extending CCTV coverage, and investigating artificial intelligence (AI) monitoring and community reporting apps.
The ideas come as part of the council s draft community safety plan, which will be discussed at a meeting of its Strategy, Policy and Finance committee on 11 March.
The committee will consider whether to recommend to the council, which next meets on 25 March, to approve the plan for public engagement.
A report for the meeting prepared by council strategy development manager Rosemary Viskovic said there was an increasing perception amongst residents and visitors that Rotorua s public spaces were not safe.
Rotorua s controversial i-Park parking system cost the district council just over $1.7 million last year, consuming almost 84 percent of its just over $2 million parking revenue.
Paddi Hodgkiss is among those fuming over the cost of the i-Park parking contract in Rotorua.
Photo: LDR / Rotorua Daily Post
Despite this, i-Park s drain on parking revenues was not mentioned in Rotorua Lakes Council s 2019/2020 Annual Report.
The council and mayor Steve Chadwick said lower revenues were due to Covid-19, and an i-Park spokesperson said there had been a significant increase in parking compliance since the system was put in place.
The i-Park system was introduced mid-2018 and in February this year, the council waived 2400 disputed parking fines after acknowledging issues with the system.