Kirsten Wise: Council to focus on enabling places and space for all

Napier Mayor Kirsten Wise.

Opinion

Even before Cyclone Gabrielle, we had a work programme ahead of us we knew was ambitious. Our recovery endeavours, and the arrival of our new chief executive Louise Miller – who joined us very soon after the cyclone – have meant it’s timely to reset our focus as a council.

It provides an opportunity to really drill down into what’s possible, what’s essential and what can wait or be rethought. There is a lot to do across Napier, and in every area, we are excited by the potential in and around our city.

Napier is a desirable place to live, set up a business and raise a family, and for visitors, we are a destination of choice. With so much opportunity to make exciting things happen, we must prioritise and think strategically so we can stretch each dollar as far as possible.

We want everything we do to be focused and to benefit the wellbeing of our community: socially, economically, environmentally and culturally.

We have formulated a vision statement that helps us ensure projects and work plans align with what we want to achieve for people who live and visit here.

The vision articulates our purpose as: “Enabling places and spaces where everybody wants to be.” It’s a statement we can keep returning to often, to make certain we remain true to our collective goal.

Underpinning our vision are strategic priorities that scaffold our decision-making. They are succinct, but they give us a focused viewfinder through which to ensure we are doing a few things really well, rather than picking up projects that are nice-to-haves but can wait.

Our priority is that we’re a financially sustainable council that nurtures authentic relationships with our community and our partners.

We want to be a great visitor destination with spaces and places for all. We want to make sure we are a resilient city too, with the ability to thrive and to withstand knocks and shocks.

It may seem a simple and straightforward thing to set priorities such as these, but it is important to articulate them clearly to ourselves, those we work with and our community.

It means we can continually remain accountable, ensuring we are doing right by those we serve while looking after resources for future generations. It also means we can check back to make sure we are undertaking the right project at the right time, and for the right purpose.

As we prepare our Long Term Plan, the work programme ahead of us delivers on these priorities and supports our desire to enable a city everyone wants to be part of.