Brian Anderson The Western Front www.sunlive.co.nz

To help with the imminent local government review, Mayor of Western Bay District Council Ross Paterson has invited you to ring him or one of his councillors with your opinions on; how many councillors are needed; what wards are needed in Western Bay; whether community boards are needed or not; and what you understand as your community of interest.

The council review five years ago received very little public comment. If there is no information for the public on options for the upcoming review, there will be very few positive considered responses to his offer. I would like to see the results of this initial phone survey, but I am not holding my breath.

One in six years opportunity

Local government directs that all community representation; councilors, boards and voting, be reviewed by next year. Initially, council discussion on a community representation review is in house, but any council decisions on revised structures have to be made public for comment. The revised plan, together with any public submissions, is then sent off to Wellington for approval or amendment.

You can decide

A problem of a council undertaking self evaluation smacks of inmates designing the asylum. The toughest question for the council to answer is whether its current system is working when the council does not have a good reputation for admitting its mistakes. Last year, the mayor did not want to discuss the past, but said he was looking for positive ideas for the future and unfortunately we have to live with the mistakes. We don't know what they are doing or where they are going. An honest evaluation of where council is now is needed before any useful discussion on a review can take place.

Where do you start?

The decisions are complex, but the most obvious evidence of poor representation is in the token community boards. Community boards are given little recognition and are generally ignored by council. The very active Waihi Community Board has argued the problems of the beach sea wall for years and still questioning council decisions at the last board meeting. It probably gives them no satisfaction that since then, the just completed structures did not even survive the first spring tide and council is rushing this week to try to rectify their mistakes. Highly expensive imported sand bought to replace sand that was given away in an earlier mistake has just disappeared with the tide. Community boards can contribute if the council is willing to listen.

Check with Sir Humphrey

I am looking forward to the council's next moves on this review and we will be able to judge if we are being offered open government or just spin. I found a great textbook on spin. I just saw a repeat of the pilot episode of 'Yes Minister” on open government. It was funny on first viewing a few years ago, but it is not so funny when we have to live it.