Have a say on Waipā councillor representation, boundaries

Waipa Mayor Susan O'Regan.

A proposal to reduce the number of general Waipā District ward councillors from 10 to 7 made it through the first stage on Tuesday, when the Finance and Corporate committee agreed to see public input.

Residents will be given the chance to have their say on whether they want to be represented differently on their council at the next election, with the total number of councillors reduced from 12 to 9. The Māori Ward is not affected and will not form part of this review.

The cost of remuneration would not change as the pool would remain the same as it is set by the Remuneration Authority.

The initial proposal is to combine the Maungatautari and Pirongia-Kakepuku wards to create a combined rural ward with two representatives.

Currently, the rural wards are represented by three elected members, one from Maungatautari and two from Pirongia-Kakepuku.

There would also be a reduction in the number of Cambridge councillors from four to three, and Te Awamutu Kihikihi ward councillors from three to two.

Interim chief executive Ken Morris said in order for the proposal to meet the legislative requirements for each ward to represent the same number of people within 10%, there would have to be some boundary changes to include part of Karapiro in the Cambridge ward boundaries.

“This would affect 78 properties and 190 electors,” he said.

Mayor Susan O’Regan said there was no perfect representation system and the challenge for the council was to ask themselves if they could do better in terms of their governance and representative functions for their community.

“It would be remiss of us not to offer the opportunity for our residents to have their say on the proposal,” she said.

As the rural and provincial sector representative on the Local Government New Zealand Electoral Reform Working Group, O’Regan was involved in key discussions at a national level about how improvements in local democracy could be best achieved.

“There is a lot of change on the horizon for Local Government and I believe there is a real opportunity to create a stronger governance model to lead our district into the future,” she said.

Consultation opens on Monday and closes at 5pm on Thursday, September 5.