Maverick decision overturned

Maverick mayor Wayne Brown has been rolled in his resolve to keep the Far North a Local Government New Zealand-free zone. And he's not happy about what he described as a "dopey move in the extreme".
At its March 26 meeting the Far North District Council overwhelmingly voted to return to the national organisation it defected from less than a year ago. A week later the council was reinstated in LGNZ's fold - at a $45,000 subscription cost.
Mr Brown is warning the reforged bond might yet be broken again.
"Don't bet on this not being reversed," he told the Northern Advocate, but would not comment further on how that might happen.
In June 2008, the council cut its LGNZ ties in keeping with Mr Brown's election promise to trim costs and scrap some of the bureaucratic layers he thought the council was mired in.
LGNZ was an ineffective lobby group, with expensive membership and returned limited benefits to rural districts, he said
Ironically, the decision to rejoin arose because a significant majority of councillors now feel the Far North might miss out on subsidies, was missing out on collective negotiation power, no longer had representation in Wellington, and needed to rebuild bridges.
It might not be the only controversial Brown-led change the council is about to turn around. The LGNZ membership issue arose during what the meeting's minutes call "robust debate" about committee options. As a result, the council will now investigate committee structure options including the benefits, disadvantages and frequency.
When he was elected, Mr Brown swept the committee system off the table, leaving only the powerful audit and finance committee.
While more talk will yet reverberate around the chamber about possible reinstatement of committees, the decision to rejoin LGNZ was decisive. Only three of the 10-member council - Mr Brown, Dennis Bowman and Steve McNally - voted against the motion put forward by deputy mayor Sally Macauley.
LGNZ chief executive Eugene Bowen said he was pleased the Far North was back. Mr Bowen disagreed that his organisation's focus was on metropolitan, not rural, centres. He said all members benefited from the organisation's "wins".
All councils were talking about similar issues, high on the list being concerns that central government was devolving too much of its own responsibilities on to local authorities, he said.
"I think that the value of a strong collective voice is pretty self-evident."
Until Wanganui, Far North and Whangarei councils broke away last year, the organisation had represented all of New Zealand's 85 regional, city, district and unitary local authorities.
Whangarei Mayor Stan Semenoff and his chief executive Mark Simpson said yesterday they were aware the Far North had rejoined but had no comment to make.