Chances are you didn't make a submission to your council's annual plan.
A very small proportion of ratepayers do.
Submitters have been making presentations to the Napier and Hastings councils during this past week.
The regional council will be hearing submissions this week.
Annual plan meetings are an exercise in endurance: they go on
for days and there are dozens of submitters to get through, most of whom will be disappointed when the final decisions are made.
But they're important too, because it's at these meetings that the councils make their biggest decision: how to spend your money.
And it's the major opportunity for the public to tell the council how they want it spent.
For that reason, annual plan meetings are a bit different from ordinary meetings.
Councillors have to talk less and listen more.
There's still a lot of mumbo-jumbo about "strategic frameworks" and "outcomes" but there are also ordinary people telling ordinary stories about roads and parking and rates.
Submitters are given some latitude to tell stories, make jokes, go off topic, be incoherent, or emotional, or combative.
And I take my hat off to those who do, because it's not an easy process to get involved in. Annual plans are big, unwieldy documents and few people set aside the time to read it and think about what it means.
Every year, councils try to make these inch-thick documents more readable and accessible, in an effort to encourage public participation.
And that's an admirable aim, because the more people who make submissions, the tougher the job gets.
For every person who thinks they're paying too much in rates, somebody else wants a project funded, or a building upgraded, or a road sealed, or an historic house preserved.
I don't think councils always get it right, and I certainly don't think the people who sit around the table are infallible.
But I'd encourage armchair critics to try sitting in on some of these meetings.
Just remember to allow plenty of time.
