Local Board Survey: Otara-Papatoetoe

The New Zealand Herald has surveyed the 21 local boards to see how they are getting on after six months of the Super City.

The Herald asked the chairs of the local boards six questions and to score the first four questions out of 10. Not all boards gave a score.

Here are the responses from John McCraken, chairman of the Otara - Papatoeotoe board.

1. After six months, how well is the local board model working for your community?

Score: 6/10

I really think that due to the planning process that we are undertaking at the moment and the steep learning curve that all the board members have gone through and continue to work on, the community probably don't at this stage see any real differences than prior to the one city system. We are still very much in an evolving state. The community engagement with regard to our local board plans was an opportunity to showcase the boards work and for the community to have input into the direction that they wanted the boards take on behalf of their communities, however the attendances to the community meetings overall were not large, but for those that did attend their views and ideas were greatly appreciated.

2. How are things going between your local board and the Auckland Council governing body)?

Score: 6.5/10

Roles, responsibilities and delegations are still a bit of a work in progress, but Rome wasn't built in a day either! All groups are talking (some louder than others) but there is a genuinely willingness to get this clearly defined for everyone's benefit in all seriousness I think we are about 95% there.

3. How are things going between your local board and the CCOs?

Score: 7/10

Our dealings to date has been very good. Auckland Transport and Auckland Property have been very prompt to act on requests, queries and meetings, mind due we haven't had or hand out for money yet, so it hasn't been slapped. Our views could change! We have had briefings from most of the CCO's so we are aware of what is happening city wide which helps put things in perspective. Communication lines seem reasonable open for Local Boards to all our CCO's

4. Do you think local boards are living up to the promise of empowering communities?

Score: 6ish/10

I truly believe that the Local Boards will be very effective in advocating and achieving results for the communities they represent. The massive amount of planning processes that we are going through at the moment are very much taking up a majority of the time of the boards but once these plans are adopted and members of the community can see what is happening the sooner they will understand the boards roles, position in the council hierarchy , what the delegated responsibilities are and possibly the Boards limitations as well.

5. What improvements would you like to see made to the local board model? (No score required)

The model is still a work in progress and until it has had time to bed in it is far too early to talk about improvements at this stage, after 18 months we will have a better idea.