KEY POINTS:
A single super city would be overly bureaucratic and impose a "one size fits all" system for the different needs of Aucklanders, says North Shore City Mayor Andrew Williams.
It would be disruptive, cost millions of dollars in rebranding costs and require big law changes, Mr Williams told the Royal Commission of Inquiry on Auckland Governance at a public hearing in Takapuna yesterday.
With two-thirds of his council, community board members and senior officers in attendance, Mr Williams put up a case to retain North Shore City Council in its current form.
"It ain't broke here, so don't try and fix it," the mayor told the commission.
Of the seven territorial local councils and regional council, North Shore has recommended the least change to the commission, which is charged with reshaping Auckland for the next 50 to 100 years.
North Shore wants to keep its model of six community boards and its current boundaries to prevent ratepayers carrying the load of "underdeveloped" areas like Rodney.
The council has recommended enhancing the Auckland Regional Council, half made up of representatives from territorial councils and half from elected councillors at large.
It is vehemently opposed to the leader of the regional authority being elected at large, saying this would lead to a presidential-type campaign confined to millionaires or celebrities. The leader should be elected by the regional body, Mayor Williams said.
He said the council wanted to provide more funding and delegations to community boards, which was endorsed by several of the boards in separate presentations yesterday.
Birkenhead-Northcote Community Board chairwoman Jennifer Yorke said funding and delegations needed to be set in law.
"It's like a bird without wings. They can't fly with no funding and powers to do anything," she said.
East Coast Bays Community Board chairman David Cooper said boards were the eyes and ears of the community: "Who will go in to bat for communities if community boards cease?"
The three commissioners, who have been very interested at all of the public hearings in the local democracy issue, asked the council and boards to provide a list of appropriate powers for community boards.
Commission chairman Peter Salmon, QC, a retired High Court judge, asked the politicians what the middle-tier council would do under an enhanced regional body and community boards with greater powers.
And the commission had reservations at the suggestion by Mr Williams that the new $104 million wastewater plant at Rosedale remain under council control and not be part of a proposed vertically integrated water body.
Mr Williams said North Shore ratepayers had gone through 10 years of pain paying for the plant and handing it over to a regional body would create equity issues.
However, he did agree there would be savings from vertical integration, and spare capacity at Rosedale could take wastewater from Waitakere that otherwise took the long route to the Mangere wastewater treatment plant.
Commissioner David Shand said Rosedale was a "a swings and roundabout issue", while Mr Salmon noted: "We are never going to get integration if local issues stand in the way."
RECIPE FOR 'BREEDING' BUREAUCRATS
From past experience, new layers of bureaucrats would emerge from further amalgamation of local government, says planner Graham Parfitt.
Mr Parfitt said the "Bassett disaster" of 1989 created two extra layers of bureaucracy to process a resource consent that at times cost more than the actual job.
The promised economies of scale and economic benefits from the last shake-up undertaken by the Local Government Minister at the time, Michael Bassett, were a total myth, Mr Parfitt told the Royal Commission of Inquiry on Auckland Governance.
What happened was that two, and in some cases three, levels of additional managers were created on salaries exceeding $100,000. These people had no hands-on job in processing resource or building consents. There were team leaders and managers to manage the team leaders.
Mr Parfitt said he had never been able to find out exactly what these people did, except attend a lot of meetings. It could take about four people three days to answer a query.
"With further amalgamation there will be further layers of super managers who will need to manage all the other people."
In his submission, Mr Parfitt listed 13 major projects achieved by the former East Coast Bays City Council when he was a councillor.
They included the purchase of houses at Waiake Beach to create a public reserve, the Browns Bay library, halls in Browns Bay and Murrays Bay, a community house in Torbay and a series of walkways around the clifftop from Browns Bays to beautiful Campbells Bay.
In nearly 20 years under the North Shore City Council, the only material works in East Coast Bays had been an extension to the library, upgrades of the Torbay, Browns Bay and Mairangi Bay commercial areas, a new boating club building on Browns Bay beach and new toilets for Browns Bay and Rothesay Bay beaches
"In simple terms, the enlarged North Shore City has done nothing of any consequences in the East Coast Bays while my rates have doubled.
"Larger local authorities mean more bureaucrats. Economies of scale, less people and monetary savings are a complete and total lie."
