Ignoring communities (and the climate crisis)
Mayoral candidate Chris Mitchell says the Kāpiti Council’s biggest failing is not listening to people and communities.
“On big issues this means that it can’t, and doesn’t, fully understand options, consequences and costs. This makes for bad, costly decisions with no community mandate. The Gateway project is but the latest example of wasted public money.”
Mr Mitchell gives another example which he says is far worse. “For over 10 years the Council has been in conflict with its coastal communities on how to manage coastal hazards in the era of climate change. Bad decisions have been made (2012), and then reversed (2014), and staff have lost their jobs, Mayors and councillors have failed to get re-elected (2013, 2016). Critically, no progress has been made despite the millions of dollars spent – all because Council just won’t accept that a workable set of local solutions requires community buy in.”
He says nearly 2,000 properties and 4,000 residents are affected and they pay around 14% of the district’s rates.
“In August 2021 Council set up ‘CAP’(coastal advisory panel), a group to steer an ostensibly ‘community led’ project to help resolve coastal hazard management – but only 1 of 13 members is a resident of the coastal area affected by the project. In fact, anyone with any local knowledge, expertise or background on the issues was deliberately excluded by the selection panel of Mayor Guru, Cr. Holborrow and a Council manager. And although 6 members of CAP were to be from Kāpiti’s 3 iwi, 4 of these 6 have not yet been appointed. All are being paid by Council.”
Mr Mitchell says the Council then told coastal residents that management and councillors would not discuss these issues with them, and that the residents would have to deal only with CAP.
“Most councillors were happy to go along with this. In the event, CAP has not only been a sham, but also a shambles – it operates secretively, keeps no real records, refuses to meet with well-qualified people, and has no coherent plan for community discussion. Although it started in August 2021, CAP’s terms of reference were not issued until April 2022 when Coastal Ratepayers United pointed out that there weren’t any – not a good example of the use of public money. A lot of the time most of CAP’s members don’t know what other members are doing. Its leader, former PM Jim Bolger, dismisses residents who have been involved in the issue for the past decade as ‘bullshitters and climate deniers’ who have built their houses in the wrong places.
“Who knows what will be next? Maybe Paekākāriki residents will be told that they can only speak to Council through a ‘community led’ panel that doesn’t include anyone from Paekākāriki, or indeed anyone who knows what they’re doing.”
Mr Mitchell says as we head into the 2022 elections, the examples above are something most current councillors are evidently quite happy with.
“They have outsourced one of their fundamental duties – listening to and understanding local views – to CAP. So when these councillors speak now as Mayoral candidates about listening to the community, or taking leadership on climate change, we should reflect on their actions, not their promises.”