Fear that amalgamation might distance councillors

Press, 16 August 1985, Page 4

Fear that amalgamation might distance councillors

Christchurch neighbourhood groups are concerned that under local body amalgamation City councillors might become estranged from the communities they represent. They met councillors last evening for a discussion on amalgamation. Before discussions began the neighbourhood groups heard details of the City, Council’s one-city proposal. It aims to include the City Waimairi, Riccarton, Paparua and Heathcote regions

under the administration of one amalgamated council. While most of the groups supported the City Council’s proposal, they asked for effective steps to ensure sound council-community communication. Unless the law is changed, a maximum of 24 councillors and a city mayor can be appointed to an amalgamated council. The Mayor of Christchurch, Sir Hamish Hay, said that the City Council was “the first to admit that this presents problems.” “It will be one of the most major challenges for the proposed one-city structure,” he said. “Whatever the final choice for amalgamation, it could involve an increase in the number of councillors.

“The system for choosing an amalgamation structure is loaded against the smaller territorial units. In order for-an adopted proposal to be rejected, more than half of the people in the total Christchurch region have to vote against it,” Sir Hamish said.

Five service centres are envisaged in the City Council’s proposal to link in with the city centre civic offices. Among the functions of each

proposed service centre are councillor interview facilities, dialogue with neighbourhood groups, community services, and several other administration functions.

The meeting supported a proposal that the neighbourhood groups take part in a seminar with the City Council, on the groups’ relationship with the new amalgamated body. Amalgamation moves would include a re-examina-tion of the rating system, Sir Hamish said.

“The City Council is looking in the future for any possible change in the basis of rating. It could be that the capital value system in Waimairi and Heathcote is more suitable for the proposed amalgamated structure,” he said.

The one-city proposal would provide savings of 10 per cent in City Council costs because of a more equitable contribution to City amenities by all Christchurch ratepayers, Sir Hamish said.

“The City Council has not carried out a cost-benefit analysis of its proposal. If we could get the necessary information from the other local bodies we could do it.”

The Town Clerk, Mr J. H. Gray, said that the Local Government Commission should do this analysis once the amalgamation issue was decided.

One group’s representative said that councillors elected for the new amalgamated body might use local community resentment to the amalgamation as an election platform. “The councillors could appeal to their voters by saying, ‘We are taken into this against our will and I will see that we get our pound of flesh back’,” he said.

Another suggestion was that councillors be employed on at least a halftime basis to ensure that they served their wards adequately. This representative also thought that had the existing local bodies agreed to contribute more equitably to City amenities, “that would not have been a bad system of local government to keep.” The City councillors replied that sharing the costs of the amenities meant taking part in the decisions about them which could be a costly exercise as shown by the Metropolitan Refuse Disposal Committee. They agreed with one representative that the City Council should discuss the amalgamation issue more directly with the public at organised meetings. One group representative said that amalgamation should be viewed in the wider context of regional government.