Councillors and members of the community have questioned the poor attendance record of Richmond Ward Councillor Mark Greening, who has missed 50 per cent of council meetings this year.
Greening, who has been on the council since 2013, has the lowest attendance record of any councillor.
He attended just six of twelve full council meetings between February 13 and June 4 and has not attended the four full council meetings on Zoom since April 21, also missing a regulatory committee meeting in March.
There is a marked gap between Greening’s attendance record and the rest of the members around the council table, with seven councillors at full attendance for council meetings, three councillors who have been absent from just one meeting, and two councillors who have missed two meetings.
Greening ran for Wellington City Council in 2010 in the Lambton Ward before gaining a seat in Tasman in 2013.
This isn’t the first time Greening’s attendance record has been questioned. In his first term, between being elected in 2013 and January 2015, Greening attending only 21 out of 53.
Greening also holds a directorship for the Nelson Airport, of which TDC has a 50 per cent shareholding.
As a director, Greening picked up $23,019 during the year 2018-19, on top of his base councillor salary of $38,262, meaning he was paid $61,281.
This is more than anyone else around the council table, excluding the then-mayor and deputy mayor, Richard Kempthorne and Tim King.
Greening only missed one meeting out of twelve for the Nelson Airport Board meetings in the year 2019.
In a previous Waimea Weekly article before the election, serious questions were raised regarding this councillor’s performance.
In the article, Greening’s door-to-door campaign behaviour was labelled ‘aggressive’ and ‘odd’ by two separate Richmond residents who approached the Waimea Weekly during last year’s council elections. Both residents claimed they felt that Greening was aggressive.
One resident said that Mark was aggressive, confrontational, and defensive when asked about council matters.
Tasman mayor Tim King said that it was ‘absolutely’ important for councillors to turn up to meetings.
“In my view, you are elected to represent the whole district, and clearly attendance at meetings is an important part of that.” Tim says.
Councillors should not only be attending meetings, but actively engaging in meetings and workshops and contributing to decision making, Tim says.
“To contribute to decision making, councillors need to attend meetings.”
“The main part of the job is getting out there and being involved with the community, working with community groups and getting feedback from your community.”
Despite numerous attempts to get a comment from Mr Greening, no response has been received at the time of going to print.