A portacom that has gone missing, not once but twice, and was due to be purchased by Creative Taupō, has been rediscovered after some amateur sleuthing by Taupō District Council staff.
The seven metre portacom was originally purchased by the TDC in 2015 for the use of community groups and served valiantly (despite being stolen once from Owen Delany Park and then recovered from Kawerau) but was due for replacement.
A new life as a mobile art space
District events manager Steve Giles told LakeFM that as part of dissolving the asset and renewing it, the council had been working with Creative Taupō about the potential to purchase it as a mobile art exhibition space or expo space, with the portacom continuing to serve the Taupō community as part of the council’s strategic partnership arrangement with the arts promotion group.
“The idea was to get art outside of the walls of a traditional building or gallery,” said Giles.
Stolen again
In February, just as Creative Taupō was trialling it and arranging the purchase, the portacom was again stolen from Owen Delany Park.
Says Giles: “We worked through the insurance claim, notified the police… what you do when something gets nicked.”
But then just last week, in the middle of the Hui a Tāpoi, the Taupō Tourism Summit, Giles says he received a text message from a work colleague.
“There was a photo, and a text saying ‘is this your portacom?'”
Cracking the case
Staff delved a little more into the item for sale on Facebook Marketplace and managed to provide the police with information including an image of the seller, says Giles.
“Sure enough, Tuesday this week, I had a phone call from the police, their online team… a warrant issued and portacom recovered. So massive shout out to the New Zealand Police.”
As well as plenty of TDC photos of the portacom that allowed a definite match to be made, says Giles, having a TDC broom still inside it “was probably a bit of a giveaway.”
With the recovered portacom now owned by the insurance company, Creative Taupō has since purchased a smaller cabin, with trailer to be purpose built, that will be more easily transportable to the likes of Tūrangi and Mangakino.
Informed of the recovery at their monthly meeting, one Creative Taupō committee member called it the portacom that “just would not die.”
Not the first rodeo
The first time the portacom was stolen was prior to the COVID pandemic, says Giles.
“And we went through the insurance process. The uncanny thing was… the insurance company were literally settling with me on the day when we had a phone call from the police saying, ‘is this your portacom?’ And in that case, it was retrieved from out the back of Kawerau.”
It had been camouflaged and was being used for some nefarious business dealings, he says.
To any potential suggestions the council needed to be more security conscious, Giles says the portacom did have a lock on the tow bar and wheels.
This story has also appeared on LakeFM: If only the walls could talk
