Ward system returning for Napier

A ward electoral system will return to Napier at the local body elections in October.
In a decision released yesterday, the Local Government Commission ruled the council will have 12 councillors - six elected at large across the city, and six coming from four wards.
The Nelson Park Ward and the Taradale Ward will each have two councillors, while the Ahuriri and Onekawa-Tamatea wards will have one each.
The decision overturns the council's status quo proposal that all 12 councillors be elected at large, without wards. Six appeals against the proposal were heard at a LGC hearing in Napier on January 31.
The partial ward system was proposed in a joint submission by the Napier Pilot City Trust, the Maraenui Community Council and the Taradale and District Community Development Association.
Pilot City Trust facillitator Pat Magill said today: "It's a bit of a victory, and now it's got to work."
"We can't skite about it, because it's going to take one hell of an effort to encourage people to feel a part of the city," he said.
The commission "couldn't get over how low the vote was at the last election," he said, and believed the ward system would help reverse that decline.
The commission said it was not persuaded by council argument that Napier was one geographic community of interest, and noted only three other cities (Nelson, Upper Hutt and Invercargill) continued with an at-large method of local government representation.
"We believe a form of ward system would enhance the effectiveness of representation of communities of interest in Napier," the decision said.