Oh and whoever tried voting a dozen times in a row for xxxx did you think I couldn’t tell.  I think the results are fairly clear and the proportions have not varied much day to day.

There will still be 7 CCOs set up and their Boards appointed prior to the Auckland Council being elected, however the Chair & Deputy for each CCO will be appointed by the new Council and there will be some spare seats on the Boards for Council to appoint. Council now also have the ability to sack Board members from all CCOs from Day 1 and appoint new ones.

Roles and powers of the Local Boards have still not been defined. There are some suggestions, but they will not be able to make their own decisions or bylaws. Remuneration for Local Board members & Councilors will have to be defined by July 15.

CCOs will be able to make decisions and bylaws but will have to be more transparent & Council can instruct them to hold meetings that are open to the public. They will have to have regard to the Spatial Plan.

The Spatial Plan will have to have regard to the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Act and other local Acts.

The report tries to reassure that water privatisation and sale of public assets is not on the agenda, but the release of the Local Government Amendment Act Bill this week shows that this is clearly untrue.

Public assets will be transferred to CCOs.

The Pacific and Ethnic Advisory Panels will still only last for 1 term of 3 years.

The Maori Advisory Board will still have no power to influence Council decisions.

There will be no Youth Council.

An informative public meeting on the forthcoming ARC Bellbird release in Whakanewha Regional Park is to be held on:-

Thursday 25^th March,

6.30 pm

at the Rocky Bay Hall

Speakers will include Mike Lee and scientists from ARC and DOC.

There will be an opportunity for questions.

Sorry folks RNZ only know how to create windows media files.

In my submission and in the interview I make the case that we are being sold a pig in a poke – just being told everything will be ok.  I was asking for a clear exit route, a clause that allows us to secede from the city if we don’t feel it delivers on its promises.

Feedback is invited at www.discussiondocuments.co.nz. Feedback closes on Friday 26 March 2010.

Have a read through and post your thoughts here.

]]> http://onewaiheke.org/2010/02/ata-local-boards-discussion-document/feed/ 0 http://onewaiheke.org/2010/01/onewaiheke-2010/ http://onewaiheke.org/2010/01/onewaiheke-2010/#comments Mon, 04 Jan 2010 02:26:30 +0000 Andrew http://www.onewaiheke.co.nz/?p=274 Happy New Year to all Waihekians and other readers.

What does 2010 have in store for this website and the island?

The big issue is going to be the super city of course.  Bill three has been released and we’ll give you a run down on that next.  In Jan there will be various meetings about the bill and making yet another round of submissions in time for the close on the 12th February.

After that we will be starting to think about the elections themselves.  We will be electing a councillor and new local board with hopefully increased powers.  We need everyone on the island to turn out to vote.  We need the best possible candidates of all political viewpoints to choose from. We want what is best for the Island, not just for this year but for the next 50.

OneWaiheke is just one simple web site.  Its role is to provide information on the issues, encourage discussion, debate and engagement.

OneWaiheke is a Pro-Democracy movement, fighting against the centralisation of power, and its movement into unelected, unrepresentative organisations.  Not because such organisations are less efficient, but because they cannot put our interests and those of our children and grandchildren first.

Not just the supercity

There will be other issues as well – I need people interested in writing about these subjects to join me as content creators on the site.  comment here if you are interested in helping out or representing one of the subject areas.

Waste

2009 saw the Waiheke does it better campaign fighting against the take over of the islands waste management contract.  This year we expect to reflect the damage done by that takeover in rising waste management costs to the island, reduced recycling, new road damage from excessive trucking and the nuisance of wheelie bins.

The Waste Resource Trust has in the mean time moved on to new initiatives in the field of energy conservation and generation.  The same educational process and mantra: reduce, reuse, recycle, translates well into energy as we seek to reduce our usage, replace inefficient appliances and recycle sun and wind into energy.

Transport

Islanders are still keeping a close watch on the Fullers Ferries and their prices with the inevitable rumours of competing services,  complaints about price rigging and requests for fair subsidies for locals.  What will the new cross ticketing system in Auckland bring?

Meanwhile will 2010 be the year of the electric bicycle?  With a seller on the island, and falling prices for imported bikes, do we now have a way to move a substantial new group of people onto two wheels?  Will this in turn trigger more new initiatives for cyclists.  – cycle lanes, parking etc.

Food

The island now has at least 4 community gardens, and did I see Swiss chard growing in the flower beds in front of the council offices last year?  The Island’s first CSA – Community supported agriculture,  peoples farm started planting in 2009 and last week we saw the first deliveries of locally grown vegetables to subscribers.  see http://waihekecsa.org.nz/ for details.

We also saw the creation of a local food delivery company Food Direct as well as the Sunday Farmers Market and the growth of the Ooooby network.

Look out for the Great Waiheke Plum Drive, coming up next week. (7th Jan)

Environment

The Gulf News letters page was spammed just before Christmas by climate change deniers. see this great visualisation from Information is Beautiful called climate-change-deniers-vs-the-consensus for a really good independent overview of the state of the debate.

Last year we saw a growing debates over aerial poison drops, cellphone towers,  and the potential damage from the development of a marina at Matiatia.  Protecting the environment of Waiheke and the Gulf islands is and will always be a battle against short term interests.   That is why I hope Waiheke can develop a philosophy of long term deep sustainability.  That’s a 100 year viewpoint folks.

If you are involved in these debates please consider writing explanatory overview postings for this site in order to inform the island.

So that’s our goal.  We are not a news site – although there will be news and events, or an opinion site – although feel free to express opinions, but hopefully a portal for accurate information about what matters to the islanders.

Happy New Year

Andrew Watkins

Palm Beach.

Have your say before it’s too late. Don’t be complacent. This is about our community, our island, our lifestyle and the future of Waiheke.

The Local Government Commission has just released a proposal on ward boundaries and representation at the super-council level. The
final stages of the Super City will be put into place very soon.

The current proposed position is that Waiheke Island is part of a new ward to be called Maungawhau – Hauraki Gulf Islands, which includes the Central Business District and in population terms (88,000) is the largest ward to be represented by a single councillor.

Our public assets are under threat

Many generations of Waiheke ratepayers built and paid for our community halls, wharves, roads, parks and sports fields.

The Auckland Transition Agency, made up of unelected staff, are organising how the new mega-city will work. It is looking at transferring ownership and control of some of these assets into corporate entities (Council Controlled Organisations) that have little public accountability.

Some of these assets may be sold

Some service provision may be sold or be committed to long term contracts (as has already happened in the waste management area) with multinational corporates in control or alternatively council corporations such as Watercare Services in control of waste water services.

Local Democracy

Under the Auckland Governance structure, we will have a local board at the community level, but it may have little or no say or control
over areas that are critical to our lifestyle and the island’s future. These include:

• effective protection of our environments, landscapes and coastline
• how are our services and activities are funded
• control over delivery of services like libraries, waste services and community halls
• an effective say on roads, footpaths or parking
• effective involvement in management of our parks, reserves, Arts and Recreation facilities.

What little say we might have – beyond specified local activities such as dog and liquor licensing and brothels – will have to be
negotiated and will be ‘delegated’ to us.

Development of the Island

Will the special character of our island be lost in the one big plan for the Auckland Council?

The two new laws that the government has already put in place say that at community level the Local Boards will not be able to own
anything, or employ staff or have any say in the regulatory processes (for example, resource consents).

This potentially means we will have no effective control over how our island develops or how our environments are protected and enhanced.

Money $$$$

The new laws say our community must negotiate with the new super council for every cent of funding. Funding for communities is
likely to be based on a population base which means our small unique community will be disadvantaged.

What does it all mean?

How can we assess these changes to see what they are likely to deliver for us?

We are being offered an input into strategies and policies. Does that really mean that local decisions will be made locally?

What happens in a worst case scenario if it all goes pear shaped? Can the local board take legal action against the Auckland Council? There does not appear to be provision for this. Considerable confusion exists about the real decision making power a local board will have.

What about the bureaucrats? We have no input into that selection process or their employment or conditions of employment.

What can you do about all this?

Find out more, for example on local boards, the local board plan, local board agreements and the local board funding policy. Go to www.lgc.govt.nz for more information on wards and boundaries, www.ata.govt.nz for how the Auckland Transition Agency is organis-
ing the new city or www.auckland.govt.nz for information on all aspects of the transition to the Super City.

Join the discussion – sign up to One Waikeke Council – at www.onewaiheke.co.nz – for discussion around these issues.

Come and discuss the issues with the Community Board at the Ostend Hall on Thursday 3rd December at 6.30pm.
Come out to a public meeting on Sunday 6th December at 2pm at the Ostend Hall for discussion on local representation on the super council, and these other issues. Help and advice with be provided on making a submission.
Come to a workshop to write your submission on Wednesday 9th December at 6.30pm at the Surfdale Hall.

Do your own submission to the Local Government Commission – these are due in by 11th December 2009. Here is a template: LGC Ward Boundaries Template – please edit into your own words. Here are some Ideas for futher comments LGC submissions

Put out a submission on the third bill on Auckland Governance – this is expected out in December 2009.

Get out and be active on this matter, get friends, neighbours and family involved. Feel free to contact your Councillor Denise Roche for any help or further information, at cr.roche@aucklandcity.govt.nz, 372 6578 or 027 209 7554 or Carol Weitzel on 372 7740.

• ARC GAC Submission Proposed Local Boards - This gives an idea of of the main population areas and names. In this ARC proposal waiheke joins western bays
• LGC Governance_establishment_guide - This is a guide to the Local Government Commission’s responsibilities and the criteria it uses to make decisions about boards and wards.
• LGC Commission_tasks_and_approach - Sets out the Commission’s approach to identification of communities of interest. This also includes the time line.
• Local Government Auckland Council Act 2009 - The full act. see 
  Sect 16 – decision making responsibilities for local boards, 
  Sect 17 – principles for allocation of decision making responsibilities of Auckland Council, 
  Sect 19 – local boards funding policy
  Sect 20 – local board plans
  Sect 21 – local board agreements
  Sect 31 – delegations
• LGC Report Back aug 2009 - Report back from LGC on the proposal to move Waiheke to  Thames Coromandel District council. Contains some relevant analysis.

Waiheke is already guaranteed a community board. It is enshrined in the legislation. but it is not large enough in population to gain a full council representative.  The average ward size is around 60,000. Hence Waiheke will be joined with some other part of the City to form a council ward.

Nearby choices include: ( ward, current holder, party) 

• Hobson –  Aaron Bhatnagar, C+R
• Western Bays – Graeme Easte, City Vision
• Devonport – Chris Darby, independent,  http://www.chrisdarby.co.nz

If you can’t make the meeting feel free to add comments here