A Gisborne man is pressing on in his decade-long battle with the district council even though the project he originally took issue with is complete.
Peter Millar has been battling the Gisborne District Council since 2011 over issues related to the inner harbour. Photo: LDR / Alice Angeloni
Since 2011, Peter Millar has taken a keen interest in the inner harbour area, where he drafted concept plans for the marina development in 1999.
Concerned that parking would become a larger issue than it already was, he began to ask questions of Gisborne District Council about a project he believed wasn't thought through.
His efforts resulted in the council blocking his email address, access being denied to their Facebook page, ongoing disagreement with the chief executive, and most recently an independent review of the organisation's decision to deem him an "unreasonable complainant".
But Millar isn't going anywhere.
"I want my name cleared because I can't do anything with the council currently," he says.
"I'm hoping that they (the Ombudsman) are going to overturn the review, so that I'm no longer deemed an unreasonable complainant."
Although the saga began over 10 years ago, it wasn't until 2017 that Millar began to properly butt heads with the council.
That year, he took exception to missing details in council minutes which indicated a former agreement could bind the organisation on the issue of inner harbour car parking.
In 2019, he brought attention to a leaking roof of an almost $1 million toilet in the same area, and later claimed he was being "gagged" on issues relating to the inner harbour.
But his persistence wasn't paying off.
On February 14, 2019, the council deemed him "an unreasonable complainant" for his repeated requests for information on the inner harbour development.
In a letter written by council chief executive Nedine Thatcher Swann, a number of reasons were listed for making the decision, including Millar repeatedly raising the same issues despite numerous responses.
He was also accused of posting inaccurate and inflammatory information through the council's social media channels.
Thatcher Swann addressed Millar at the time.
"It does seem that there is an unwillingness or inability on your part to accept reasonable and logical explanations for the information that we hold," she wrote.
"You continue to pursue and exhaust all available review options when it's not warranted.
"You then refuse to accept that further action cannot or will not be taken."
Millar maintains that wasn't a fair assessment.
"I don't believe I have been unreasonable. I've been very persistent because I have a passion about it."
Being an unreasonable complainant meant Millar was blocked from the council's Facebook page, which he was informed of in the letter.
What he wasn't told was that his email address would also be blocked on all council channels.
After connecting the dots of what had happened, Millar had a small win in September 2020 when he took the issue to the Ombudsman and the email block was lifted, allowing him to request a review of the decision.
The council then engaged with ex-Bay of Plenty Regional Council chief executive Mary-Anne Macleod to undertake the review, with the findings released in April 2021.
While Macleod found the council's decision justified, she did highlight some issues, saying the council should not have blocked all of Millar's emails without informing him, and that only those related to the inner harbour should have been barred.
February 14 marked three years since Millar was made an unreasonable complainant but he isn't giving up on getting the ruling overturned.
He has lodged another complaint with the Ombudsman.
And while he waits for a response to that, he wants an apology for something that happened at that time.
Following the council's decision to make him an unreasonable complainant, the chief executive sent an email to councillors instructing them to not actively engage with Millar until he had "time to digest the contents of the letter and the policy".
Millar says he only caught wind of the instruction about two years later and believes it wasn't right for her to send out the message.
In her review of the council's decision, Macleod said she believed the request to not correspond appeared to be a temporary measure, but Millar isn't satisfied with that explanation.
"I want to know why she (Thatcher Swann) thinks she can go and tell councillors not to talk to me. I believe they owe me an apology, I believe she owes me an apology."
Asked for comment on Millar's request, the council preferred not to address the matter.
Director of internal partnerships James Baty confirmed the Ombudsman was investigating Millar's case and said it wouldn't be appropriate for the council to respond at this time.
Baty said the review requested by Millar cost council $18,915, which did not include "considerable" staff time over the duration of the saga.
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