"The council went out and asked people what they thought about a local ward-based system but then subsequently radically changed tack, deciding in favour of district-wide voting – without going back out to people to see what they thought about that," Williamson said.
Such a radical change in council position, after having asked the public what they thought on a proposal, was a 'sad indictment' on decision-making, he said.
Williamson was one of the people who spoke against district-wide voting at the LGC hearing.
The LGC ruling means 68,000 Whangārei voters will effectively go 'back to the future', electing councillors much in the way they always have via local wards - except for the district-wide Māori ward.
Mayor Sheryl Mai said the council would accept the commission ruling. Electors would vote under the representation arrangements the commission had ruled in favour of.
This will see the following general wards - Bream Bay, Hikurangi-Coastal, Mangakahia-Maungatapere and Whangārei Heads - while a fifth general ward, Whangārei Urban, will combine the current Okara and Denby wards. There will also be a district-wide Māori ward.
There will be a slight change to the Bream Bay and Mangakahia-Maungatapere wards. The southern part of Maunu's Cemetery Rd, (north of SH15 to the west of the city) moves from Bream Bay into the new Mangakahia-Maungatapere ward.
The district-wide general ward was initially put forward by councillor Carol Peters.
Peters said she was okay with the commission ruling, because her initial proposal had come with district-wide voting plus community boards. The community board part of her proposal had not proceeded. District-wide representation without them provided potential representation challenges.
Mai said the whole process had clearly shown the need for an overhaul of the Local Electoral Act (LEA), under which the commission operated.
She said her preference was to be able to present several representation options to voters, such as the district-wide voting, wards and a very small council with community boards.
"One of the shortcomings of the process is that (under the LEA) WDC could only put one option to our people," Mai said.
Another issue was that the LEA allowed only those against the council's final representation choice decision to speak at a commission hearing, she said. There was no option for those in favour to speak.
The commission ruled that WDC's political representation will see the same number of councillors representing each of the Bream Bay (two), Hikurangi-Coastal (two), Mangakahia-Maungatapere (one) and Whangārei Heads (one) wards.
However, the number of councillors representing urban Whangārei will drop to five. There are currently seven councillors representing the two urban wards that will merge into the Whangārei Urban General Ward – Okara ward's current three councillors and Denby ward's current four.
Williamson said it was unfortunate to see this urban representation drop as half the voting population of Whangārei district lives in Whangārei city.
LGC hearing submitter and Northland Federated Farmers president Colin Hannah said in principle he was pleased with the commission ruling, because it helped maintain the rural vote.
He spoke against the district-wide proposal because of concerns this would potentially be lost.
"Many people in town would be surprised how much rural people pay in rates towards Whangārei's urban area," Hannah said.
