Election-sign move nuts: Candidate

Leanne Brown

Tauranga City Council has come under fire for introducing a "bureaucratic" step into the process of approving roadside election signs.

Three of the four Mount Maunganui/Papamoa by-election candidates interviewed yesterday disagreed with having to fill in a form to specify the number of signs, their size and locations.

"The whole thing is nuts," candidate Murray Guy said.

Only Leanne Brown appeared to be relaxed with the step, saying the extra paperwork was not that onerous: "They are trying to make sure that the city will not end up a messy mass of signs."

Ms Brown assumed the council was trying the process on the small scale of a by-election.

She intends to apply for more locations than she has signs so that they can be moved around.

Mr Guy branded the form-filling a "bureaucratic nightmare". It had been a staff initiative and was not a change of policy introduced by the council.

He predicted it would be a "different kettle of fish" in the 2016 Tauranga elections when 60-plus candidates were expected to seek the mayoralty and seats on the city council, Bay of Plenty District Health Board and Bay of Plenty Regional Council.

Processing sign applications from that many candidates would involve a big cost in staff time and risked disadvantaging candidates if staff sought more information. Experience had shown that when people made applications to the council, the timeframe would be longer than they expected, he said.

Candidate Clare Wilson said the extra step of filling in a form was unnecessary because candidates had to abide by the bylaw for election signs.

However it was academic for her because she did not intend to use signs, saying they were visual pollution. The people of the Mount and Papamoa would vote for the person who represented them best, regardless of signs, she said.

Candidate Janet Peters said she would have preferred not to have to fill in the form: "It's a little bit over the top."

Efforts to contact Matua Parkinson, the fifth candidate in the by-election, were unsuccessful yesterday.

Council legal and governance manager Kirsty Downey-McGuire said it was using the 2013 election handbook, with an addendum for the by-election that included the words "election signs in a public place may be displayed with the prior consent of the council".

She pointed to the signs bylaw that said "no sign shall be displayed in any public place without the written permission of council".

Ms Downey-McGuire said the process had been initiated to ensure the council was consistent in the application of the bylaw, that signs did not present a safety risk and that the council remained impartial in relation to elections.