In my view, democracy is not well served through ‘experimental’ fora within which well-informed input from ratepayers is proverbially ‘screened for relevance’ by elected councillors prior to disappearing without record into the ether. Like Daniel Blake, we (the community) are citizens, citizens with the right to be engaged in truely ‘citizen centric’ processes.
The sad reality is that increasingly, the processes in place to ‘enable’ the community to do so are by design obstructing this very outcome – the current ‘experimental’ fora facilitated by council being a case in point. The mayor has (I believe), at this point a unique opportunity to inject rigor into current process and practice and in doing so harness crucial community intellect into future planning and decision making around multiple issues that confront Kāpiti. Integrity of process is fundamental to the delivery of democracy.
MARGARET STEVENSON-WRIGHT
Waikanae