ICC body to manage facilities

An Invercargill City Council-controlled organisation would be set up to jointly manage and operate the Civic Theatre and Stadium Southland, councillors decided yesterday.

Mayor Tim Shadbolt and city councillors voted to support the proposal at an extraordinary council meeting, despite opposition from several members of the public.

When the proposal was put to the public last month, Invercargill Deputy Mayor Neil Boniface said city leaders wanted to see the facilities properly used, maintained and funded.

The Civic would still be owned by ratepayers and the stadium would still be owned by a charitable trust, he said.

Yesterday, before councillors decided to forge ahead with joint management proposal, council watcher Alan Swallow suggested Stadium Southland be fully owned by the Invercargill Licensing Trust to ease the burden on ratepayers, who were paying $500,000 a year for its upkeep.

"`Let's not kid ourselves," Mr Swallow said. "It it wasn't for the ILT this stadium wouldn't exist. They should take their baby back and put it in their nursery."

Another long-time council watcher, Max Skerrett, told councillors he agreed with Mr Swallow. The stadium was originally supposed to cost $80,000 a year and the costs had ballooned out, he said.

Mayor Tim Shadbolt responded that there was probably quite a bit of support from the non-trust members around the council table that the trust should own the stadium.

"It should be put to them to see what they say," Mr Skerrett said.

Council chief executive Richard King said when the council was asked to contribute $500,000 a year towards the stadium's upkeep it looked for cost efficiencies and identified that joint management of the stadium and theatre would save ratepayers about $100,000 a year.

That meant the council's yearly contribution to the stadium's upkeep would actually be $400,000, he said.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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