Upcoming pre-vote meeting to explore council union proposal
A public meeting is being organised so residents can hear detailed information before they decide what to submit or how to vote on the proposal to unify Nelson City and the Tasman District councils.
Golden Bay’s councillors and community board met informally this week to start getting their heads around the fine details of the Local Government Commission’s (LGC) proposal for the union.
The board will make a detailed submission on the matter before the 18 August deadline, and residents have been encouraged to submit as well. Everyone involved says that the most important thing is to vote.
“This proposal is a golden opportunity – an exciting, once-in-a-generation opportunity,” says board chair Carolyn McLellan. “We’re actually one region anyway. The boundaries between Nelson and Tasman are only artificial. We’re absolutely interdependent and we should be one group for governance. The LGC has invited the community not just to tell them whether we agree or not. They want us to make specific suggestions about how the union might be made to work. I believe they’ll take our suggestions on board and perhaps rejig the proposal. They’ve listened to us very carefully so far. The proposal is very good at detailing the kinds of delegations that a unified council should give community boards, but there’s a mandate from our community to look at expanding those delegations.”
Board member Karen Brookes believes that our community board must have more delegated powers because the Golden Bay ward would be entitled to only one councillor under the proposed union. She described the LGC’s proposal as “cohesive”.
“Provided that we get stronger delegations for all the community boards, I feel that it is a very positive opportunity to strengthen the governance in both Nelson and Tasman.”
Board member Mik Symmons is encouraged by the increased extent to which our community can be involved in planning “more proactively than reactively”, he says.
“The proposal takes me back to the flooding of December 28 last year,” says Mik. “That reminded us all again that you need collective strength as a region to cope with a disaster. We are actually one region. I think the proposal takes account of the fact that we’ve grown up a little. It grants quite a lot of autonomy to communities within the region, but it has the advantages of a larger scale.
The greater scale of the unified local body doesn’t mean we’ll get all the projects we want, though. We’ve lived through the golden years; times are going to be tougher. Maintaining infrastructure - let alone expanding it - will be a struggle. The population of Nelson/Tasman added up doesn’t equate to a very large urban centre elsewhere. It doesn’t make sense to have two sets of local body governance. Politics is sometimes about incremental change. Moving forward takes time because you’ve got to convince people that your point of view is worth listening to.”
Board member Leigh Gamby says the proposal gives Golden Bay more autonomy and self-determination than it has had since the “enforced amalgamation of 1988”.
“Any anomalies in the rating systems can be sorted out. The proposal gives the region more resilience, for example, in disasters.”
Councillor Martine Bouillir is also enthusiastic about the proposal.
She was also able to share with the board the fact that council would be urgently considering the matter of increased delegation to the Motueka and Golden Bay community boards at its meeting on Thursday 30 June.
“It seems to have come about because the community board here is working so collaboratively with council and especially with councillors. The agenda contains a suggestion that community boards be granted all the delegations mentioned in the LGC report on the union. That’s great. Council has also conducted a review of actual costs and removed 5.5 hours of the CEO’s time that had been budgeted for and that the board has not used.”
Mrs McLellan was pleased to hear about the council’s decision to investigate increased delegation.
“This is a wonderful starting point. We want to enter into dialogue with council to make this work. I will be going to the council’s meeting on Thursday but the board won’t have an official response because we haven’t had the chance to discuss it. It will be a late agenda item at our next meeting on 12 July.”
Councillor Noel Riley is reserving his judgement on the union proposal until he has heard all the arguments and considered the detail.
“I’m keeping an open mind. There’s a lot of information to take in and understand before I cast my vote. I hope everyone takes the time to familiarise themselves with the LGC’s reports. Then it’s most important that people take the time to vote on the issue.”
The community board has ensured that there are plenty of hard copies of the LGC reports at the TDC service centre. The board members are all encouraging as many people as possible to become familiar with the specifics of the proposed union.
Neil Wilson
STOP PRESS: Mayor Kempthorne on delegations
Enhanced delegations for community board were due to be discussed at this week’s full council meeting. Tasman Mayor Richard Kempthorne explained the process by which the issue has surfaced at this time.
“Council’s CEO Paul Wylie and I went to Southland and some other places to find out about the different ways community boards and their councils work. We came back and we wanted to make improvements to assist the community boards and to make sure people feel that council values the boards and their work. I had some discussions with the Motueka and Golden Bay boards and they basically agreed with everything we thought.
“Now the LGC has come out with some specific suggestions for the delegations to community boards. We were going to improve them anyway, so Mr Wylie’s report will come up at Thursday’s full council meeting.”
Neil Wilson
