Alpers petitions for councils

Press, 17 December 1988, Page 6

Alpers petitions for councils

By

DEBORAH McPherson

Heathcote County’s chairman, Mr Oscar Alpers, has petitioned the Government to ensure district councils are an integral part of any new local government reorganisation next year. His petition was presented in Parliament last week by the member of Parliament for Lyttelton, Dr Peter Simpson. Mr Alpers told Thursday evening’s council meeting he had no idea how it had been received. Most councillors had not even known it was planned but no dissent was voiced once the petition was circulated to council members. “If Cashmere wanted to have a street beautification scheme, it should be able to decide that for itself without having the city council worry about a street scheme,” he said. Mr Alpers said he was advocating district councils similar to those already responsible to the Paparua County Council.

The Local Government Commission was talking of allowing for ward committees, “because it knows the law that allows for district councils is unworkable,” he said. Mr Alpers said the Local Government Act provided for district councils but it was unworkable, because the legislation required rigid representation of boundaries. Those boundaries followed Statistics Department’s boundaries which “had no regard for where the communities were,”