Rating the councils

Part 2: It’s been 100 days since Wellington’s councils were elected. The Dominion Post looks at what has been achieved across the region in that time.

Porirua

She would never say it, and maybe she doesn’t know it, but one of the biggest things to hit Porirua in the first 100 days of its new city council is its new council. Or more precisely, the person newly in charge of the new council.

Mayor Anita Baker is a person with two front feet.

The woman who emerged victorious after the bloodiest fight of the region’s elections (and that includes Justin Lester’s Wellington City Waterloo) is still not ready to fade into local government inoffensiveness.

Ask her about the most important decisions in the first 100 days, and her response will get the blood boiling in some community members.

The big decision was, she says, the reappointment of the city council’s chief executive, Wendy Walker. ‘‘That was good to get that to bed before Christmas. So we can continue in and drive ahead for the next three years.’’

So much for Operation Clean Slate.

Walker made the decision to confidentially email councillors the week before the election, disclosing council inquiries into then-mayor Mike Tana’s petrol card spending. The email leaked, the inquiries went nowhere but Tana lost the election and his beloved chains.

It remains to be seen whether the double-front-foot approach works over the term but it is honest, and it is refreshing.

The new council will need all the refreshments it can get going into this year while facing a triple threat. Porirua faces a review of its District Plan, a review of its long-term budget (which covers spending and predicted rates increases over a decade), and a tough annual budget fight to chisel down this year’s rates increase.

The predicted rates increase is 7.48 per cent. Baker said she was aiming for 3.9 per cent to 4.5 per cent. Every political opportunity is a political crisis waiting to happen. Even cutting rates increases comes with risks and disappointments for some.

Baker and her council have a heck of a year ahead.

– Joel Maxwell

Ka¯ piti Coast

It’s been a quiet start to

Ka¯ piti Coast District Council’s new term but there are big issues queuing in the three years ahead.

With six new councillors around the table, mayor K Gurunathan’s second term will see a number of big and probably controversial decisions made for the district.

Waikanae’s now-closed leaky library, coastal erosion, and the contentious renaming of the former State Highway 1 are looming over the new council, as is a costly independent review voted through by previous councillors. A review of the current beach bylaw is one of the first items on the agenda, and is likely to stir up those for and those against vehicles driving on beaches.

Deputy mayor Janet Holborow said the council was settling in well and was ready for the challenges ahead.

‘‘We’re having a hui to discuss climate change issues in February . . . There will be a strong focus on coastal adaptation, but also general mitigation and our rather ambitious goal we set to be carbon neutral by 2025.’’

The Mahara Gallery project , which would see a purpose-built