We have reached crunch time in our decision-making on local government amalgamation.
If you are unsure of the detail, have a look at the last issue of the Martinborough Star and read the front page and my column – I won’t repeat it all here.
Our council recently ran an opinion survey. Many thanks to residents who responded letting us know your views on important issues. Because it was an “opt in” survey – i.e. not a true random sample – we know we can’t say it is correct within a few percentage points either way, which is how professional pollsters characterise results. But we do know that it gives us a sense of where people are with the big, gnarly issues.
Unsurprisingly, a significant majority of those who answered the survey said they preferred a Wairarapa unitary council over Wairarapa being part of a bigger, region-wide unitary council.
Then (also possibly unsurprisingly!) when people were asked to rank the importance of various issues, they ranked essential infrastructure delivered cost-effectively as top, with affordability/financial sustainability second, well ahead of other issues including local representation.
When I saw the survey results, I wasn’t surprised: we want to totally run our own show but we are also worried about future costs. It’s a dilemma!
Wairarapa councils have had external reports to help with our decisions. The problem that we’re facing in Wairarapa is that our current incorporation into the Greater Wellington Regional Council provides financial benefit we wouldn’t receive from going it alone, in particular for public transport but also for environmental and catchment management. Without these costs, a standalone Wairarapa Unitary Council would make financial sense, but there’s a funding gap when we add them. Unfortunately, this gap is likely to grow in future with the increasing need to be able to fund resilient infrastructure such as roads and bridges. A significant “shock” (maybe something worse than this year’s rain events) would be challenging for our balance sheet, to put it mildly. To help our decision we’re using the following principles:
- Take long term view
- Be evidence-led and objective
- Focus on outcomes, not structures
- Protect local democracy
- Pursue the strongest proposal
- Support regional alignment
- Ensure transparent community engagement
In addition, we’ve been working in the regional Mayoral Forum to ensure that a Wellington/ Wairarapa unitary council is designed to optimise representation and local decision-making, in the event that we end up there – either by our own choice or because the Government places us there, which is still a possibility.
We are considering both options carefully but because of the Government-imposed timeframe – ridiculously short – it’s possible that by the time you read this we’ve already made a formal decision.
Regardless of that decision, whichever model we think has merit will still require several more months of debate with other councils on the details of the model. We will also be asking the community for further views – but hopefully in less of a rush.
