Richard Taylor, with councillors, at the last council meeting before the election. Photo / Leanne Warr
Richard Taylor has seen a lot of change in the Tararua district in the last 45 years.
The council's manager of democracy services has decided to retire, timing it for the end of the current council term.
"I had thought a lot in terms of work-life balance and in the job I do it's quite structured. There's very little time for a lot else. That's true of many jobs now."
Retirement would also give him some time to relax, and do things he hadn't been able to do, like spend time with his wife, or pursue his interest in horse racing.
Taylor first started working for Dalgety Crown, stock and station agents, as what was then called an office junior.
He was then aged around 15.
He'd initially wanted to become a stock and station agent, but management felt his skills were best in the office.
After he was asked to transfer to Palmerston North, Taylor decided to work for the Dannevirke County Council, in 1977.
Then in the mid-80s, he took a leave of absence to travel to the United Kingdom, Russia, America, and then Japan.
Shortly after his return to New Zealand, the county council merged with the Dannevirke Borough Council, and he took on the role of doing meetings, such as the noxious plants authority.
Following the amalgamation in 1989, Taylor's role changed to administrative support of elected members.
"I've been doing it ever since."
His role was something that he said was "not everybody's flavour".
"I quite enjoyed it. I found it a privilege to work with the elected members."
Taylor said sometimes the roles and the decisions made by the elected members were not going to be popular but he did his best to support them and give them the assistance they needed to do their jobs.
He's become known for using his pen and paper, along with a bottle of Twink (corrective fluid).
"I've always done it that way because that's what I had when I first started. We didn't have computers. We didn't have the technology that we do now."
Some of the biggest changes he had seen over the years had been in what the council dealt with.
"When I first started working with the county council, it was all about roading, the rates the rural community were paying.
"There wasn't a lot of focus in the county on urban things."
He said there wasn't a focus on social outcomes, or on urban-based services.
"It wasn't about swimming pools, it wasn't about libraries, town halls, sports centres."
The pace at which change happened today was another thing Taylor had noticed.
"In the days gone by, people would contact council by phone or they would come in. Or they would write. Now ... everything is instant. You have emails, social media."
He said the sheer pace of government placing requirements on councils that dictated what they could or couldn't do was another change.
"We've always had legislation, but it's become more prescriptive in terms of national standards."
Taylor said he'd seen it get more and more removed from localised decision-making to the point where councils weren't able to do something because of legislation or reform which was based on a "one size fits all" model.
One of the major changes in the district was the amalgamation in 1989.
"I was part of the '89 reforms when Sir Michael Bassett was the Labour minister. Nobody saw Tararua coming."
He said it was initially thought there would be Ruahine District Council, which would be an amalgamation of Dannevirke and possibly Central Hawke's Bay, and then Bush, which would have included Woodville, Pahiatua and Eketahuna.
There was quite a bit of opposition to the new district council.
Taylor said there were different levels of service between north and south.
"It took the council probably at least two terms to work through and bring all the communities together and try and have a consistent level of service."
While those reforms were major, he hadn't seen anything like the pace of change the current Government was trying to push through, such as Three Waters, the review of local government and national policy statements on land use.
"All that [is] happening at a time when there's so much uncertainty with Covid and now inflation."
Social media had also impacted the council and not necessarily in a positive way.
Taylor felt that social media dominated people's thinking, where it would be more antagonistic towards public authorities.
"You have to develop a thick skin in terms of the people you deal with because they forget that we're all human beings too. We're all members of this community."
He will miss the job and the people.
"I have been privileged to have the trust and respect of the elected members, management and the staff as a whole."