The Howick Local Board has budgeted $4,000 on fridge magnets to promote its emergency response plan.
The idea is that a magnet on the fridge will remind residents the Howick Emergency Readiness and Response Plan exists, and where to find it when disaster strikes.
The Board considered the magnets for the first time at its workshop on 1 October, after allocating the money in June.
Auckland Emergency Management staff brought draft designs to the workshop, and they were met with disappointment.
Staff proposed 13,050 business-card-sized magnets at 30 cents each, for $3,915, each carrying a photo of a local landmark and a web address.
Chair Bruce Kendall said the mock-up shown to members was many times larger than the real thing.
“If I imagined it was actually the size of a business card, I would not be able to read anything. So I’m a little bit disappointed that we’ve got an example here that’s not to scale,” he said.
“It’s not about something looking beautiful. It’s about something being functional … We’re paying for a functional tool.”
Staff also recommended dropping the QR code the project was named after, saying website changes could stop QR codes working.
The QR code on the cover of the Board’s own emergency plan already leads to a “Page not found” error.
Member Damian Light said he had expected key emergency contacts such as 111, not a photograph, and suggested the magnets might need to be bigger.
He also questioned where the $4,000 figure had come from.
“I don’t know where we got the money, the number from,” he said.
Member Jack Collins questioned how many people the magnets would actually reach.
“We’d only be able to get 13,000 … printed, which would only be 27 per cent of the households,” he said.
Collins said his own search had found the same size magnet for a lower cost, and asked staff to present other suppliers’ prices.
The Board’s consideration of the item culminated in staff agreeing to report back, including on whether the Board could increase the fridge magnet project’s budget by moving other unallocated spending around.
A local board advisor said the $4,000 had only ever been a starting figure, and the workshop was the first time the Board had heard expert advice on the project.
“If there is underspend we’ll bring that as an option for the board to place some of that underspend into this item,” the advisor said.
That could pay for bigger magnets or more of them.
Workshops are informal Board meetings where no decisions are made, but Board members discuss official business in a forum that is open to the public to attend.
