AN OPEN LETTER TO THE INCOMING HOROWHENUA DISTRICT COUNCIL CEO

As a District, we will be thinking far more age-friendly, recognising our older population’s value, contributions, and needs. We will be a District that ensures that there is amenity offering, facilities, and core council infrastructure like good quality and well-maintained footpaths to enable greater and safer mobility. In addition, the Council will be increasingly playing its role in achieving a safer community, supporting smarter and more connected-up crime prevention initiatives.

All in all, residents will be becoming increasingly proud of Horowhenua and what’s been achieved since 2022. It hasn’t lost what residents enjoyed about Horowhenua when it was smaller but has grown better as it’s matured. Growth will work and be good for us and enhance our local experience.

Three years on, residents have a genuinely better experience because Council has shifted from a mode of planning and strategy setting into actually delivering services and infrastructure at pace. In addition, the Council has deliberately focussed on fixing longstanding infrastructure and service issues, whether they be property specific stormwater issues, frustrating potholes or more significant issues like the quality of waterways or Horowhenua’s lakes.

By 2025 Council will have moved on from its cultural issues and ‘say no’ mindset. Instead, it now has an unwavering focus on its core activity – to serve the people of this community.

Under your leadership, the Council organisation has worked hard to become far more open, transparent and accountable. It is also involving, responsive and enabling.

Council is committed to being better in everything it does and finding new and more efficient ways. We will be celebrating a move towards being more digitally savvy, with services and facilities that are easy to use and access.

Council will constantly focus on the important stuff – infrastructure and housing, rather than fluff or unaffordable nice-to-haves or activities that should be the domain of central government or other organisations. When community initiatives or amenity upgrades are promoted, like parks, sports facilities and playgrounds, they will be supported by business cases that demonstrate an acceptable return on investment and are strategically important to achieving our district vision. We won’t spend money if we don’t need to and if the community doesn’t support it.

Residents will have renewed faith in Council because it will demonstrate a culture of fiscal restraint and discipline lacking in previous terms. In addition, Council will have robust procurement processes, and we will be actively ensuring that our contractors provide quality services and value for money.

Council will have implemented zero-based budgeting, where each year, all expenses will be scrutinised and justified. We won’t just allocate budgets because we have always done so; we will look at our planned needs and budget accordingly, always looking for savings or to cut wasteful spending.

Residents will not have endured 7+% rate increases experienced in 2021 and 2022. Instead, there will have been a focus on affordability, sensible spending and finding additional funding sources other than rates. Our planning and budgeting would have been supported by business cases and appropriate financial and risk information.

We would have developed and executed a clear roadmap for success based on a vision owned by all elected members that is communicated to and lived by all staff. The Council team will have a ‘deliver the yes’ mindset that achieves its objectives and produces better outcomes for our people. We will have a Long Term Plan, Infrastructure Strategy, Revenue and Finance Policy and other strategies and plans that sensibly link together and that are realistic and affordable. We will be operating on a commonsense basis that ensures we do what is right, not easy.

I would hope that with your leadership Council will have a culture and work environment that is the envy of other workplaces, where staff are well-engaged, motivated, respected and high performing. In addition, governance would have given direction around operational budgets, remuneration and staffing levels that ensures the go-to approach is not always about bringing on ‘new staff’ or higher staff costs but working smarter as an employer of choice.

We will have better working relationships with our neighbouring councils and the private sector to find economies of scale and better or more efficient ways of doing things. We will be working towards increasingly more effective working relationships with Iwi partners, with relationships based on mutual respect and free and frank dialogue. Council will be transparent about our relationship and resourcing arrangements with all our Iwi partners and community organisations.

As the governance group, the elected Councillors will be a high performing team that delivers good governance, leadership, and clear strategic direction.

That is my vision and my hope for Council. But, to achieve this 2025 vision, Council needs to change. I am excited about the prospect of getting there together with the support of your transformational leadership. Our Council needs a refresh and refocus with positive leadership that is effective and results-driven. Our people need and deserve better.

I do not doubt that if your achievements at Central Hawkes Bay District Council are anything to go by, Horowhenua is exceptionally fortunate to have you on board.

Thank you for choosing to return to Horowhenua, and I hope you and your family settle in quickly.

Yours sincerely