Our district council, after a rush of blood to the head, voted to support the ill-considered proposal for a unitary authority for the district. This will now be sent to the Local Government Commission as being the favoured position of the district.
Councillors Ann Court and TomBaker were the only councillors to oppose the move, basically on the grounds that there was no clear evidence there was even marginal ratepayer support. Soliciting support and not providing satisfactory answers to genuinely-held concerns is not consultation.
The very well-reasoned and logical summation presented by Cr Court, supported by Cr Baker, did not receive the measured consideration that it should have. The arguments they presented were irrefutable, and at the very least the decision could have been deferred or the proposal circulated to ratepayers for clear, definitive endorsement.
The end result of this debacle will be that the commission, after visiting the North, will make the decision and we will probably finish up with one unitary authority for Northland. But possibly this was the real agenda all along. If so, it may not be a bad thing, just so long as individual communities have autonomy and the power to make their own decisions.
