Just When You Thought It Couldnt Get Worse

Marie from Waikanae

I’ve realized that I have probably been lulled into a false sense of security in recent years over the way local government is administered in Kapiti. I assumed we had a steady hand on the tiller in our current Mayor. However, the opposition to our recycling centre closing has opened up a whole other, bigger, can of worms. The Mayor does not have his hand on the tiller at all. The Chief Executive, a salaried, non-elected staff member with no electoral accountability, is running the show. As anyone who has done Political Science 101 knows, ”he who controls the agenda controls the process”. Nothing goes on the council agenda without the approval of the Chief Executive.


Community representation is no longer possible. A pre-prepared staff report must accompany any notice of motion put before the council. If the staff don’t like it, there is no motion on the agenda. It is all through the Long Term Plan if you care to have a look. Each activity has a staff recommendation attached to it and the action is decided on the basis of this report. What do the staff recommend? Basically they say that the action is recommended because they say so. Evidence based decision making has also gone out the door along with the democratic process.


Representation is denied. Community Boards who attempt to put a motion on the council agenda are told by the Chief Executive that it cannot go ahead because there is no pre-prepared staff report and/or the item is not relevant for the community board to discuss. Just what the process is for obtaining a pre-prepared report from the staff is unclear. There does not appear to be any framework for doing so.


One community board whose notice of motion was rejected sought redress from the Ombudsman only to have the request itself rejected. Why? Because the first thing the Ombudsman did was send the request to the Chief Executive. It’s created a barrage of mixed metaphors; the tail is wagging the dog, the fox is in charge of the henhouse and the ship is headed for the rocks. Democracy as we know it in Kapiti is dead. This is serious stuff. As one colleague, a former high ranking diplomat has commented “Its most disconcerting”
Disconcerting indeed. Question is, what can we do about it?