Re NSTA article 26th February 2010

Perhaps the Remuneration Authority’s demands to increase Councillors’ pay are unwarranted but any informed person with even a passing interest in Council’s activities knows that workloads have markedly increased since the announcement of the Super City. And will continue to do so and not just because Council officers are devoting an at times unfair proportion of their day to transition demands. We are striving to ensure that our communities needs are addressed in the sure knowledge that local boards and even the Auckland Council will have be, perhaps for several years, bogged down in the seething cesspool of transition. Many projects that we planned to develop and complete over several years now have to be well advanced before October. This is in the knowledge that our elected members will possess little power to deliver to local communities what local communities want. I am confident that well developed plans will be included by the new Council.


But, plans that are not well advanced will have little chance of being included let alone implemented and at the best extensively delayed. Councillors and officers are continually reviewing communities’ expectations of needs and striving to ensure they are met otherwise they will drop away when Hide’s undemocratic ‘beast’ emerges after November. So town centre plans such as those in Takapuna, Highbury, Northcote and Beach Haven have to be pushed along as fast as possible. Other examples include notable the tree schedule plan change to protect significant trees including our coastal pohutukawas, heritage protection plan changes, a heritage strategy, parks and reserve assessments and purchases and ensuring all our community groups and amenities are secure during the transition. To suggest such work ceases in July is disingenuous.