Wallacetown appealing proposal

The Wallacetown Community Board says the new representation structure proposed by the Southland District Council will see its community voice be drowned out by others.

The board is set to endorse its appeal against the council’s final proposal for the community representation review tomorrow.

It is appealing to the Southland District Council and the Local Government Commission.

‘‘In the appeal written up by community advisor Fiona Dunlop, the board argues that the new model of governance will result in unfair representation for the community.

‘‘It appears that the Southland District Council can change how it interprets representation to suit its own means.’’

Under the new proposed structure, Wallacetown would lose its community board and come under the new Oreti Community Board, which takes in Wallacetown and covers all the way up to Dipton. The new Oreti board is the largest of the nine proposed community boards, the appeal says.

Each of the eight board members would represent about 1072 residents in the ward.

The next largest proposed community board, Waihopai-Toetoe, would have seven members who each represented about 774 people in the community.

In the minds of the board, the high number of residents to each member did not constitute fair and equitable representation to any of the communities outside of the Winton Area, the appeal says.

The board argues that Winton, in its own right, should retain a community board for the township alone.

With a population of roughly 5100, Winton was the largest township in the Southland District.

‘‘It should not be confused with, or be deemed to include, any other communities.’’

The community board had few links, if any, to the Winton community, the board says.

‘‘Respecting this means that Wallacetown should retain its own status as a separate community and hence have its own community board.’’

The council was grossly out of touch if it genuinely believed that either Wallacetown or Winton considered each other communities of interest, the appeal says. Residents of Wallacetown wanted it to retain its own identity and let the local decisions be made by locals, the appeal says.

Next year Central Southland College will be zoned to not include Wallacetown, resulting in no school link for the Wallacetown area within Southland.

‘‘This emphasises the point that Wallacetown is a separate community from that of Winton (even if it does take the Department of Education to identify it for us).’’

Fire and Emergency New Zealand also identified Wallacetown as an independent community, the appeal says.

The board goes on to say at no stage in the consultation process was it suggested that the Wallacetown board would be absorbed into a bigger board.

‘‘Nondisclosure is not an acceptable consulting tool.’’

If the Wallacetown board represented its community of 650 residents then the objections it raises over the proposal should be taken in a more serious light.

The board will decide at its meeting tomorrow night if it will endorse the appeal.