Hauraki District Mayor Toby Adams. Photo / Supplied
Hauraki District Mayor Toby Adams. Photo / Supplied
Re-elected Hauraki District Mayor Toby Adams says there's no way to predict what the future of local government will look like - but he would be unsurprised by an amalgamation of councils.
As he returns for another term unopposed, Adams said he was not giving up on local government retaining control of water infrastructure.
"We're going to do our best to retain the waters. I don't think we should be penalised for what other councils have or haven't done."
The Hauraki mayor said he was "very humbled" that nobody put their name against him in the mayoral race. "This for me feels like I'm doing an okay job, but I have to keep up the same level of workload.
"It would have been easy to step back and let it all roll, but I got into the job because I'm passionate about the community I live in. I owe it to the community to ensure whatever happens with government, we're putting our best case forward.
"It's going to be one of the least settling terms we've had as a council since 1989 when major amalgamations occurred, when around 850 councils were merged into 86 and we saw the creation of Hauraki district."
Speaking of the Government's Three Waters reform and reforms to the Resource Management Act "changing the way people apply for and get resource consents", he said councils were also in a dynamically changed world due to Covid.
"People are a lot more vocal in their dissatisfaction with government as a whole, which puts us in that light as well. It's a really challenging time.
"When it comes to the future of local government, we don't know what that's going to be like. The last we heard from the Prime Minister was that there would be no more reform unless local government wanted it.
"What our roles are going forward, that's stuff we don't know. Who knows what [the Government's] grand plans are? If they take all the water infrastructure away from councils, are councils big enough to carry on their own? Or do they need to be amalgamated?"
Whilst Adams returns unopposed, in neighbouring Thames-Coromandel district, seven candidates are vying for mayor with incumbent Sandra Goudie not re-standing.
Some 24 hours before nominations closed last Friday at noon, it had looked like community boards in particular were going to require byelections with not enough nominations for Thames, Tairua-Pauanui, Mercury Bay and Coromandel-Colville.
"This means it will be [the] council that will likely be delegated those particular boards' decision-making powers on issues that the local boards would normally lead," said Aileen Lawrie, Thames-Coromandel District Council chief executive.
"Power would lie with council until we can hold byelections where needed and have community boards and the appropriate delegations in place."
In Tairua-Pauanui, this would have left only one person representing two settlements that produce the highest average rates per property for the district. Among candidates who entered their names late because of the lack of nominees was Nathaniel Blomfield, a former Labour Party candidate.
Thames Coromandel District Council chief executive Aileen Lawrie. Photo / Supplied
"We only had one nomination on the last day so I put my name in to make sure we retained some representation in council from Tairua, especially after the difficulties we had getting the new skatepark plan finally progressing."
Tairua and Pauanui are part of the South East ward alongside Whangamata, but with high numbers of non-resident ratepayers, these settlements often struggle to obtain a local candidate at the council against the larger population of Whangamata.
Together these three communities, Whangamata, Pauanui and Tairua, have just two elected members on the council compared with Mercury Bay ward – Whitianga and smaller communities – which now has three following a representation review that increased the area's councillor count from two.
Thames also has three councillors, and Coromandel and Colville has one elected member, John Morrissey, who stood unopposed.
The Coromandel was not the only district facing a lack of candidates. Local Government New Zealand says nominations for this year's local body elections were a concerningly low number in some parts of the country.
