Candidate wants a more open council
Chris Mitchell, from Waikanae, has announced his bid to become the next Ka¯ piti mayor after the local body elections in October.
Mitchell, a lawyer who has acted for the Coastal Ratepayers United group, said over the past decade or more, there had “been a trend across the public sector for organisations to be become more remote from the people and communities they serve”.
“The council has become an extreme example of this trend.
“I have lost count of the number of people who need help to get answers from council to important but basic and routine questions which affect them commercially or personally.
“Phone calls to council staff are not answered, emails may or may not be answered, the contact details of responsible individuals are treated as highly sensitive and secret.
“Information, let alone reliable information, is hard to get, particularly in real time.
“Often these are small things which can and should be easily fixed.
“But the problems have crept into the big issues as well.”
Mitchell had “seen many enthusiastic and able people elected to council and become completely thwarted by the inertia of process, and the agendas set, not by the community, but by management”.
“Too many councillors simply give up on their ideas.
“Others are just captured by the process, and the insistence that following the agenda is the only option.
“The last straw for me was the council’s 2021 review of its own representation.
“Far from attempting to find solutions to the increasing loss of engagement with the community, the council adopted a proposal which was even less democratic — abolition of community boards and the merger of the largest urban areas into a single ward.”
Mitchell said: “Council needs a reset to acknowledge that it exists to serve the district’s communities.
“It needs to face out rather than in, and to import ideas and skills from the community — not resist them.
“Management needs to be redirected accordingly.
“The role of elected members is to understand and speak up for their communities, and to direct the organisation.
“I have a lot of experience in local government.
“As a lawyer I see the best and worst in terms of practice, leadership and engagement.
“I know that our council does not have to be this way.”