There are a few loud and vocal supporters of the National led coalition government’s plan to demolish local democracy and run our town from Wellington.
The Whakatane Action Group (WAG) is one of the loudest voices in support of Wellington versus Whakatane.
In today’s Beacon there is a very good example of the kind of administration Wellington offers for Whakatane.
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THE ASSAULT ON TE TEKO HORSE RACING COURSE
Eastern Bay of Plenty District Trust chairman Bernie Joyes tells the story how Te Teko and the Whakatāne Racing Club almost lost all their equestrian assets and land ….
Back in the late 90s, New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing thought it would be a good idea to sell us up and use our assets, and put the money into other venues, but we fought the good fight and stopped that from happening and continued racing.
But in 2000, we decided we better protect ourselves from another assault.
So, we formed the Eastern Bay of Plenty District Trust, and all of the racecourse property was put into the trust, and we leased the racecourse back to the Whakatāne Racing Club at a peppercorn rental.
They took over and ran all day-to-day operations while the trust sat in the background.
The trustees were appointed from members of the Whakatāne Racing Club.
So, when it came up that the Messara report came out, and two Australians took over New Zealand racing virtually, they decided, in their wisdom, to get rid of a lot of old clubs.
We were one of them and ll our assets and take the money. Well, they then discovered that they couldn’t.
But they still wanted to close us down, and during Covid, they took the opportunity to just close us down without any consultation.
They took our trials licences off us and without being able to run trials, which was where we made our money, not from our big race meetings, we couldn’t continue.
They wanted us to move to Rotorua or Tauranga, and have our race meetings there.
But at $15,000 a day course hire, we would have lost money, and we would have gone backwards – we weren’t economically viable.
So, we had a special general meeting, and the members voted to dissolve the Whakatāne Racing Club.
Three of the trustees didn’t wish to carry on, although they did support us in our attempts to establish this venue, for what it is now, and we rewrote the trust deed.
In that trust deed, we’ve specified that this event centre, Racecourse Park – Eastern Bay of Plenty District Event Centre – is for the benefit of the people of the Eastern Bay, namely the Ōpōtiki, Whakatāne and Kawerau districts.
We’ve specified all three.
I managed to find three good trustees, and the old trustees resigned, and we took over.
I’m chairman of the group, and we’re turning this into an event centre and we’re at the stage now where we need people to know that we’re no longer the old Racecourse.
That we’re Racecourse Park, and that we’re here for, hopefully in the future, events, weddings, awards ceremonies and different things.
Farming Like Grandad will be here in April for the third year in a row.
We have a bunch of South Africans that come and camp here, 400 of them. They put a water slide off the top of the grandstand; we’re here for them.
They have a special kind of summer camp kind of their own.
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Whakatane – YEAH
Wellington – NAH
