Last chance to vote for real change

What does real change look like in this election? There are suddenly a lot of candidates promising fiscal responsibility as they chase your vote, including some that have been elected for years (decades even) as your rates have kept increasing.

So, when you are voting, how do you tell who is really for change in the way our council operates and who is just mouthing slogans?

Real change requires real policies, not just promising “every dollar is precious” (to misquote a very old Monty Python skit).

So here is my detailed programme to deliver real change:

1. Appoint a new council chief executive who understands both the numbers and the financial pressure on ratepayers, and is committed to work with councillors and all of our residents to deliver value for money.

2. Complete the transition of waters assets into a new, ring-fenced entity. The government has given us no choice in this, so get on and do it to achieve the best outcomes possible for our residents and ratepayers.

3. Complete the regional deal with government that will unlock growth in our region. This is important as we need to move forward with jobs and houses for our people. Strike a deal that the government commits to, and won’t unravel if the next general election brings change in Wellington.

4. Carry out a top-to-bottom review of our council, to eliminate waste (our head office costs are way higher than at similar councils) and also to bring focus on core areas such as roading, after the separation of the waters assets. The result will be a smaller, focused and much more efficient council.

5. Work with government on its drive to take councils "back to basics" and cap rates (we should aim to do better than just cap rates). This includes determining the future of planning and regulatory functions, which may or may not rest with council in future.

6. Communicate openly with our communities. I will continue to post, comment and generally keep you informed about council news (both good and bad). I may not be quite as frenetic as I have been in recent weeks but I will not disappear into the Barkes Corner bunker, like previous mayors.

7. Spread the same culture of openness throughout the council so that communication is at the core of how it works with people. This means being open to the ideas of others, consulting openly on new projects and not relying just on statutory processes or 10-year old plans and policies that everyone else has long forgotten about.

8. Create a more transparent council, with fewer debates behind closed doors and fewer workshops. Advertise these on the council's website, so that you know what council is working on. There will still be some commercial contracts that need to be discussed out of the public eye, but no one should be surprised by a new council project or decision (on managed retreat, budgets or any other important matter).

We need a council that delivers value. This does not mean spending nothing, it means prioritising the key issues from our communities and getting them done. The big problems are not hard to see. We need to ease Te Puke’s traffic woes, complete the development of Omokoroa (where growth has stalled — a huge financial risk to council), sort out Katikati’s ageing and leaking wastewater pipe and make Waihi Beach’s stormwater system safe.

(Some of these tasks will pass to the new waters organisation but council will still set waters strategy as a shareholder.)

This is not an exhaustive list. Our smaller communities of Maketu, Te Puna, Paengaroa, Oropi and many others dotted around the Bay all have their own priorities (rural roads in particular).

We need to be more responsive on small things too (did you know the council has no policy on how to maintain its thousands of street trees, leading to many problems for neighbours?)

The only way we get done what our community needs is to become a much more efficient council so that we spend less on internal costs, and more on delivering for you. Our council takes more than $100 million a year in rates. That should be plenty of money to deliver a good service, yet a consistent complaint from residents is that they do not see value for money from council.

Western Bay is blessed with a beautiful climate, wonderful bush and beaches, economically important farms and orchards, and strong communities that want to do their best. We need a humble council that understands that it is better to work with our people, not charge ahead in its own direction and expect others to follow.

So are these just words, or do I mean it? Yes, I mean it.  Some of the details have changed, but this is the same policy platform I brought to council three years ago (and is still on my FB page and website -- I don't take down old posts). I have spent the past three years poring through spreadsheets, questioning assumptions and challenging the status quo. 

I can point to millions of dollars that I identified to be cut out of budgets (and the council adopted, as this is a team game). Two easy cuts I spotted were millions of dollars to upgrade a wharf for a ferry service that had already been cancelled and millions more operate a swimming pool not yet built.

But we need to do more than this to tackle waste, which is why I am standing for mayor.

There are lots of status quo candidates this election. We have the current mayor, the recent CEO and three councillors who have all spent years (up to 21 of them) on council. Most are now promising a change of direction but my question is, why did they not change things before when they had the chance before?

I get it. Voter turnout is poor ahead of the deadline at midday tomorrow (Saturday) as many people have given up on voting as they do not believe it will make a difference.

Changing council will be hard graft. It will involve both studying the spreadsheets and going out to talk to people — and then leading the new team at the council table to set a new direction.

Doing this to the best of my ability is my commitment to you, whether elected mayor, councillor or as a ratepayer, like you.