Jane Nees BOP Regional Councillor www.janenees.co.nz

The spectre of local government reform has been receiving quite a bit of media attention lately. This is good, since our whole community needs to be engaged on this topic.

However, this can be very counter-productive when the information being presented is wrong.

Recent reports infer the Bay of Plenty Regional Council has a predetermined view on structural reform in the Bay. Nothing could be further from the truth.

For some time, the regional council's position has been: it feels work is required to understand what would be 'Best for the Bay”.

This was not primarily about structural solutions, but to look at what functions are delivered across the local government spectrum, and how best these could be provided to the communities which they support.

The council's preference was to collaborate with other territorial authorities on this work, so we end up with a shared perspective which can be used as a basis for discussion with our communities.

The other key concern was should a proposal be lodged by a third party, council needs to be prepared with an evidence-based study to inform its response.

Understandably, any change is threatening and without a tangible proposal for structural reform it was hard to get Bay of Plenty-wide local government collaboration on this ‘Best for the Bay' research.

Now there is a proposal in the wings for a Tauranga/Western Bay of Plenty amalgamation, and also one coming through in the Waikato, the regional council has decided it can't wait for all local authorities to be party to the ‘Best for the Bay' research.

At a recent council meeting, the regional council decided to fast-track this work so it has a solid base on which to discuss what its position will be going forward.

And this is the situation. No structural preference, but a desire to pull some good information together to help inform discussion with our community and to enable robust decision-making.

If you have any views on this or any other issue, please contact me on neesj@xtra.co.nz or ring me on 07 579 5150. Or you can check out my website at www.janenees.co.nz