From the Editor - Ashley Smyth

I have some questions.

As a reporter, I have done my best to avoid the council news round. I always thought covering day-long meetings, giving everyone a voice, and summing it all up, in around 500 words, was a bridge too far for me.

Now, after listening to two days of public submissions this week at the Waitaki District Council via Zoom - both on proposed aspects of the economic development strategy, and the Annual Plan, I still think it.

So, I’m not writing about the submissions - those who are interested can watch the hours upon hours of footage on the council website. It is fascinating viewing and I can’t do it justice here.

Instead, my question is - using what I’ve learned as a reporter who, in a team of one, is now covering council news - could there be a better way?

We all agree that democracy is a fundamental part of how this country operates. But is democracy being served if people who make submissions misunderstand, misread or are ill-informed on what they are submitting about?

A few weeks back, I spent a decent amount of time talking with Waitaki District Council chief executive Alex Parmley. I had read (and I think have gained a vague grasp on) the adopted Uplifting Waitaki: Hāpaitia te Waitaki Economic Development Strategy. I also saw misleading information on Facebook about it.

People are angry about things they think are happening and going to happen, that actually aren’t happening or going to happen. No matter how many times people are told Ōamaru’s Blue Penguin Colony is not going to be sold, they are determined to believe otherwise. 

I think deputy mayor Hana Halalele summed it up well in her deliberations, at the end of the second day of hearings, when she expressed her disappointment at the “one-sidedness” of a lot of the verbal submissions received on the questions of whether an Economic Development Agency should be established (and Tourism Waitaki disestablished), and whether a partnership opportunity for the Ōamaru Blue Penguin colony should be investigated.

“I felt like they didn’t fully comprehend or understand what we were trying to achieve through the strategy,” Hana said. “And I guess for me personally, it’s more around the people and the skills and building the capability of our community that they weren’t quite seeing, and they didn’t really fully appreciate all of the levers and opportunities that the strategy could actually provide.

“We haven’t fully developed an actual plan yet, it’s just a high-level strategy,” she said.

I thought if I could sit down with Alex, and go over some of the misconceptions the public had, maybe clear some up… there would be a better understanding of things going forward, but that didn’t appear to happen. You can read that article here 'Change inevitable, council chief says'.  

I am just one ratepayer with one (possibly naïve) opinion - but to me, most of these things seem like a good idea, and these are not ideas just plucked out of the sky - they came from groups of good Waitaki people, who gave up hours of their time to sit around tables with each other, trying to figure out what would be best for their district.

These were people working in the thick of each of the particular areas addressed in the strategy. They certainly don’t agree on all things, but mostly agree on the same end goal - a better Waitaki.

We want the Waitaki, its businesses, its farmers, its employees - all its people, and its environment, to thrive, don’t we? Don’t we want people to be more educated? Don’t we want more workers? Don’t we want more housing? Don’t we want our towns and surrounding areas to be nice places to live? These things don’t happen in a vacuum. There needs to be a plan, and maybe it needs to be ambitious.

Rates are going up, that is a given, and whatever the cost is to have all those councillors, council staff, and members of the public sitting in that room for two days straight, seems like an inefficient way to spend ratepayers’ money.

Especially, if then, the councillors decided to go ahead with the strategy, and there will no doubt be comments that they were acting against the views of the majority - regardless of whether the majority of that majority is ill-informed.

I don’t know what the answer is. I suspect I’m not the only one!

There were of course a number of valid submissions - especially to do with the annual plan - which needed to be heard for councillors to understand and consider different perspectives, but maybe there needs to be some sort of screening process?

Maybe verbal submitters should be required to fill out a questionnaire or speak to a member of council beforehand, to ensure they fully grasp what they’re speaking on, and see if their concerns can’t be addressed, prior to adding their name to the list… or should anybody just be able to sit there and waste time and ratepayers’ money. Is that the beauty of the submissions process? I guess listening to The Wizard suggesting the Victorian precinct should return to the way it used to be, and everything should be run by volunteers, because who doesn’t love giving up their time for nothing, was entertaining?

We have elected a council - from what I can see, a pretty competent one - with a mix of youth and experience, small business owners, farmers and parents. They are more well-informed on local issues than the general public - that’s their job. Can we just trust this council, who we chose, to make the best decisions for the district on our behalf.

Is that not why we chose them?