It was with a sense of optimism that I learned of James Palmer's appointment to one of the most important roles in the region: that of chief executive of the Hawke's Bay Regional Council.
James comes with an extremely good reputation gained in both Wellington and during his brief time at the HBRC, and takes over at a critical juncture in the council's history.
At all my street corner meetings over the past 18 months, a number of the issues that people tell me are of importance to them are actually those under control of the HBRC: any potential sale of the Napier Port; water bottling, consenting and quality; the dreadful state of Lake Tutira; the debacle that the dam has turned into; the sale of the income from the Napier residential leasehold portfolio; the flirtation with fracking; lawsuits and counter-suits between the HBRC and the Hastings District Council; and, to a lesser extent, the fisheries management in Hawke Bay.
All this erodes the council's social licence to operate and certainly has a number of ratepayers questioning how our annual contributions are spent; especially when we learn that $20m of our money has been poured into the dam project and not a sod has been turned, and yet a number of the council's core areas of responsibility certainly appear, on the surface at least, to have been neglected.
My experience is that there are some incredibly competent and passionate employees at the council, who do an amazing job under rather trying circumstances.