Chairman in battle to prevent board's axing

WAIMARINO STALWART: John Compton (right), with Raetihi police officer Jim Marsh, pictured when he was deputy mayor of Ruapehu in 2009.PHOTO/FILE A-010409WCTGRAETIHI01

The chairman of the Waimarino-Waiouru Community Board is preparing for a fight to keep it.

If the board is disestablished - as the Ruapehu District Council is proposing - southern Ruapehu people will be robbed of their voice, chairman John Compton says.

Submissions to the council close on September 25, part of a six-yearly review of electoral arrangements.

Under the proposal, the board would continue until the October 2016 election. Councillors elected then would decide what, if anything, to replace it with.

The most likely replacement is a southern Ruapehu community committee, composed of the area's four councillors and mayor Don Cameron, who lives in Horopito. It would meet informally with community groups more regularly than the board and would have whatever decision-making powers the council delegated.

However, Mr Compton said the Waimarino was a unique area and the "jewel in the crown" of the Ruapehu District.

It was a progressive area with many tourism businesses and absentee owners, and it had no "community of interest" within the north end of the district.

"There's a mountain in the way, and we have nothing to do with Taumarunui. All our interests are to the south," he said.

"Our policing, our education, our health and our fire service all come from that direction - from Wanganui and Palmerston North. Our sporting teams play in the Wanganui competition."

Mr Compton is a former deputy mayor of Ruapehu, and was deputy mayor of Raetihi borough before that. The Ohakune and Raetihi boroughs, and Waimarino County Council had been "functioning nicely" before they were brought under the Ruapehu District Council, and he doubted they could stand on their own now.

"We have been forced into this unholy amalgamation. Those that do think, think how can we make the best of a bad job? And that best is keeping the community identity."

The Ruapehu district stretches from the Hiwi Hill, north of Taumarunui, to Waiouru in the south, with its head office in Taumarunui.

The Waimarino-Waiouru Community Board advocated for interests in the southern end of the district, said Mr Compton, who will fight the proposal.

He said he would appeal against it to the Local Government Commission and was collecting information toward that.

He successfully fought an earlier proposal by former Ruapehu Mayor Sue Morris.

The board has six members - Mr Compton, John Hotter, Lucy Conway and Allan Whale, who were elected, and ward councillors Pita Pehi and David Nottage.

They were a good mix of rural and urban, Mr Compton said.