New plan doubles councillors

Hastings Mayor Lawrence Yule

Hawke's Bay voters are likely to go to the polls between July and September next year to decide whether they want the region to be governed by a single mayor, 18 councillors and five local boards.

That is the scenario outlined in a 30-page "position paper" released by the Local Government Commission yesterday.

The paper sets out the commission's "revised position" on amalgamating the five councils into a single unitary authority, and comes a year after it released its initial proposal for a merger.

Key changes to last year's draft proposal are a doubling of the number of councillors who would be elected to the single council - from nine - and the replacement of five community boards with more powerful local boards sitting under the council.

Two councillors from each ward would be appointed to their local board to "ensure good co-ordination and communication across the wider council," under the revised proposal, the commission said. Area offices would be established in Wairoa, Napier, Hastings, and Waipawa, and there would be a service centre in Waipukurau. Council services to the public would be "decentralised to these locations as far as possible". As per the earlier draft proposal, the headquarters would initially be in Napier, but a transition board would "review this location and make any recommendation for change."

Public hearings were held this year and the commission will not be seeking further submissions or holding a new round of hearings as a result of the position paper.

"The earlier round of public submissions and hearings were valuable and helped the commission to fine-tune its position," Local Government Commission chairman Basil Morrison said.

The commission said it had "reserved its position" on the ring-fencing of existing council debt pending further information and analysis. It has asked councils for an update of existing financial arrangements and future infrastructure and asset investment requirements. It expected to provide an assessment of that information in February next year.

Also early next year it intends commissioning a survey of about 2000 people across the region as a means of "testing the level of community support for change".

If it then decided to release a final reorganisation proposal, that would be done in March or April. Opponents of amalgamation would then have 60 working days to get the required 10 per cent support in one of the affected districts to demand a poll, likely to be between July and September.

Amalgamation would only go ahead, effective from after the October 2016, local government elections, if a majority of poll voters were in favour.

Hastings Mayor Lawrence Yule, a supporter of amalgamation, said he was pleased with the changes made in the position paper because it showed the commission had taken on board issues raised during the consultation process, including a request for more councillors on the single council.

Napier Mayor Bill Dalton, who opposes amalgamation, said he was concerned the commission had stated it planned to "circulate information more widely to Hawke's Bay households" regarding its proposal.

"These are the guys who are promoting amalgamation. They've got unlimited government funds so they're going to promote their argument to the whole of Hawke's Bay," Mr Dalton said.

"If we were talking about fairness and democracy they would supply those with a different view with the same amount of funding."