By Margaret Evans (former Mayor and Hamilton Ratepayer)
To the Mayor and Councillors:
INTRODUCTION:
Everything in this submission comes from filtered conversations that city people share among themselves and with ME. Little is new and the content is well recognised within the community. Too many people will not ‘have their say’, Reduced trust is aggrieved by paid advertising that says ‘Rates increases an unfortunate reality’.
This submission is also being provided to Cabinet Ministers to assist them in their current drive for reform, economic and financial responsibility, and improved public service delivery.
Concern is mounting that Hamilton City Council (along with many others) has lost the way in the current bureaucratic maze of governance, that the hundreds of pages of glib words do not rest easily with HCC’s proposed operation and spend and the hints that ‘this is not our fault’. Robust research confirms the loss of trust in local government generally.
HCC’s fixation with growth and ‘grand projects’ and the lack of innovations such as micro-systems in the ongoing Three Waters discussions, along with poor maintenance & ‘city-keeping’, is of mounting public concern, along with the disastrous state of council’s financial affairs & failure to ‘balance the books’ over so many years. It is a nationwide embarrassment.
Advertising publicly that “cutting costs for essential work” is “off the table” is another example that further portrays this council as unwilling to innovate and therefore simply foolish. It is wiser to look deeply into why costs to councils are so high. For the first time in almost two decades – since the public campaign against the council that followed the V8s – the billboards are going up and a public petition has begun.
Central Government – voted in six months ago with that public call for change – is digging deeply within to insist a ‘fit for purpose’ public sector. There is talk that Hamilton is at the top of the list for local government dysfunction, not just ripe for commissioners, but for statutory managers as well.
Hamilton’s fizz about ‘helping shape the future’ denies reality: The current plan to increase rates and debt without significant reforms would expose the council and therefore the city to unacceptable economic and financial risk. And still the weeds would grow. HCC’s draft plan fails: it is NOT ‘looking after what we’ve got’, NOT ‘delivering the essentials’, NOT ‘balancing the books’.
This submission is seeking, independent reviews, reforms & significant changes to the council’s processes and operations, all to enable councillors to ‘do things differently’. Now and for the future. Working together with the community.
The aim is to bring fresh thinking to HCC’s financial and service delivery challenges
- to ensure clarity on “what the city needs now, and in the future”,
- to answer community calls for real change, for an innovative and proper LTP review reflecting current local, national, and global circumstances,
- to address bureaucratic obesity
The following recommendations can be backgrounded further by ME during the hearings with councillors.
Please reserve ME a slot.
Margaret Evans
Margaret.evans.nz@gmail.com
SUMMARY
1. Finances
Recommendation: Immediately pause a decision on this Draft LTP and Infrastructure Strategy and commit to an urgent independent assessment by a group of selected qualified locals (as further outlined below) initially focussing on Years 2024-2025 and with the first report by 30 June 2024.
Recommendation: Invite public submissions & formal input from local research institutions relating to Three Waters services in response to local observations of out-dated ‘Think Big’ proposals from Future Proof and the draft Infrastructure Strategy rather than innovative services such as micro systems, industrial water separation, & ground water sustenance. This projected spend is almost $2billion ($1+billion for waste water, $300m stormwater & $500+m for water supply). Plan a Town Hall on the subject.
Recommendation: Invite public submissions on the concept of ‘multi-skilled neighbourhood-based small business enterprises’ in response to local concerns at poor current contract performance re potholes & street surfaces, footpaths, street cleaning, weeds & rubbish…vandalism. This is ‘Localism’, local pride/better services, ‘micro-business systems’. This projected spend (Downers 2023) is $540m+. Plan a Town Hall on the subject.
Recommendation: Invite public submissions on the concept of community boards to manage & operate community facilities and venues related to events and tourism including the central rugby and cricket stadia, Claudelands, the Zoo, and Hamilton Gardens (CCOs like Hamilton Airport or the new regional theatre, Tourism Waikato, Sport Waikato, Creative Waikato, Community Waikato). This projected spend is $679m. Plan a Town Hall on the subject
- Processes
Recommendation: Immediately insist the ‘Tolley Way’ aka ‘Churchill’s Brevity’, and put a stop to ‘500-page reports’. Require clear financial information in all reports, and ‘Plain English/plain language’ to ‘inform’ in all Council communications – replacing excessive prescriptive detail & promotional marketing jargon & with digital links to relevant (but still brief) technical reports.
Recommendation: Reinstate Saturday morning ‘open sessions’ with councillors at libraries and community centres, and monthly ‘Town Hall’ meetings where locals can share and discuss their ideas (and concerns). These would be in addition (or replace) the staff-driven public information sessions, and the time-restricted open forum prior to formal council meetings.
- Red Tape
Recommendation: Advise Cabinet, LGNZ, and Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown, that HCC seeks an urgent Ministerial review of the relevant legislation and WorkSafe and Waka Kotahi,NZ Transport Agency 2022 interpretations of employer responsibilities to employees prompting the current regime of Temporary Traffic Management Plans (the plague of orange road cones), noting this is not aimed at compromising worker safety but is responding to community concern at the huge costs now accruing to the public purse (both taxpayers and ratepayers) with little evidence of effectiveness or value.
BACKGROUND
What’s the real problem
The recommended independent assessment responds to public/community concerns at the significant growth in the size and costs of local government this century (paralleling Central Government). This includes the view that a ‘gold-plated or top-shelf’ approach within the public sector combined with excessively prescriptive and bureaucratic processes has encouraged businesses to ‘load’ their prices in council contracts.
A further factor is the emergence of the Governance Divide which inhibits elected representatives in ensuring accountability on operational matters, and the legacy of neoliberalism, managerialism, and ill-equipped executives leading to reliance on consultants.
The Hamilton review should be initially undertaken openly by locals (recognised leaders from the business, professional, and community sectors) with an independent chairperson, all to be agreed by the Minister of Local Government. There are already volunteers with deep commitments to the city, and who (unlike consultants) not only have deep local knowledge but will do this pro bono, ‘for the public good’ and willingly collaborate with the community’s ‘elected leaders’. Some names have already been suggested for an appropriate chairperson.
No new capital projects, programmes, or developments should be approved until the assessment is completed (NB from both the Infrastructure Strategy and LTP).
There is particular concern at the lack of innovation in the Three Waters package and the transport legacy of.Peacockes growth cell (& why the Wairere connector bridge was given precedence over the SH1 airport & Kahikatea southern Links).
Special focus should be to investigate claims of ‘overdesigned/overengineered projects’ (eg Peacockes, cycleways and speed humps, Hamilton Gardens and Zoo entrances), & ‘excessive corporate contract costs’ (eg potholes/street maintenance & stadia food). Any ‘tradie’ will tell you how cost loading is inevitable when dealing with the council. The Celebrating Age Centre is now a relevant case study ($57m v. $3.5m) and also introduces the failure of maintenance programmes & the value of on-site management (and community board operations).
Doing thing differently
The assessment of operating costs & the search for savings should follow immediate implementation of the ‘Tolley View’ – from Tauranga commissioner Anne Tolley who quickly banned the ‘impossible’ 500-page agendas (the new Paper War).
“I said ‘I never want to see this again … how can any person read this, digest it?’ My colleagues felt the same, we just thought ‘this is crazy’ and it was simply the habit that the organisation had got into because decisions weren’t being made, more information was always asked for.”
Tolley says the council was focused on process and reporting “and we had to change that”. “We want stuff delivered,” she says.
It is whispered that not even council staff read their own policies and reports. They are just too long (and described as the work of ‘23-year-old unworldly policy wonks with inept managers’). But staff briefing to unwary councillors can be manipulated.
In this digital world, people can watch council meetings on their own screens. They watch councillors. In the community, they talk about them not listening to their colleagues, spending their time checking their phones or texting, the ones who obviously haven’t read their agendas. And all those executive staff, also watching, hours spent at the back of the chamber, also ‘twiddling their thumbs.’ Tell them to be ‘on call’ and that would save their time for productive work.
People now talk about the 21st century style: the avalanche of information, siloes & inconsistencies, & the emphasis on ‘spin’, how rarely the dollar costs are mentioned or tested, that too often truth stays buried. Yet few councillors have been concerned. Until now.
There is extensive public frustration at Council ‘spin’ & the failure to speak-up against prescriptive regulations, although it seems everyone wants shares in the orange cone business. The $700k Anglesea Street bus stop issue provides an excellent case study (with $130k for traffic management exposed by a local reporter NOT council staff), and reflects Mayor Wayne Brown’s concerns.
Inside the costs for three quarters-of-a-million bus stop move
https://www.waikatotimes.co.nz › nz-news › inside-costs-…
NZ Herald – Brown has been praised for his stance on road cones, estimating he can save the city on its $145 million traffic management spending each year through the more judicious use of lane closures, and other road-work processes.
Also serious, there is concern at high-cost, time-lagging and absurd ‘288-page’ building consents, and inconsistency/depending on who you are dealing with in that process. The predicted $120k DC cost per residential section at Peacockes is among the high risks also NOT clearly identified and impacting housing development. Matangi Primary School (although not in Hamilton City), has been quoted as a case study for excessive costs (and there are many more examples).
The public sector generally has become held back in their bureaucratic bog. That includes Local Government and this has brought costs in both dollars and unproductive time into business and the wider community, along with serious concerns about this council’s willingness to step up and into the real world.
All this is widely talked about within the community. Now it is time for documentation, evidence, and reform.
To follow on from past efforts to resize the Council (and consequential staff nervousness), the process could also involve each council unit preparing a Business Case on why it should even exist against clearly stated objectives, this followed by a public debate – as suggested by political commentator Matthew Hooton, prompted by the ‘extraordinary explosion of the state this century’ (18 April).
Conclusion
These extracts (below) from the Draft Infrastructure Strategy 2024-2054 (thirty years) confirm the mood for change. But so far, the Draft LTP does NOT meet the challenges.
(pg 2/86)- We need to not only invest in new infrastructure but make better use of the infrastructure we already have. This means working smarter and doing things differently. It means working in partnership more often, and collaborating across the public and private sectors to collectively deliver what is needed. …Failure to make informed decisions in these areas could have severe repercussions, impacting the essential infrastructure of our city and jeopardising the council’s financial stability.
(pg 3/86) – A different approach is needed, with significant changes to planning, delivery, and funding.
(pg 14-15/86) New Zealand is grappling with some of the highest infrastructure costs globally, and these costs continue to escalate.
We need a different approach… Incremental and minor changes to how we plan, deliver, and fund infrastructure will not suffice. …
Ultimately many of the challenges facing Hamilton need aligned local, regional, national and international efforts … Planning needs to be integrated and collaborative, pushing everyone towards a collective wellbeing outcome for communities…not just Hamilton City Council, but also neighbouring councils, Future Proof …& wider actors like the Ministry of Education, Iwi, Te Whatu Ora, electricity network providers, Department of Conservation, and Tertiary Education providers. By working together, we can ensure that our infrastructure serves the needs of all community members and contributes to a sustainable and prosperous future.
This submissions adds ‘The Community’ into that call for collective collaboration, true collaboration.
Once upon a time Town Criers shouted out ‘Oyez, Oyez’ – ’Hear this’!
Too many people will not ‘have their say’. They don’t like the tick-box digital template. They think submissions are a waste of their time; that councillors don’t listen. That there’s little opportunity for conversation, for dialogue, for sharing and developing ideas; that staff are too bound up by red tape, HCC’s processes & operations are confined by template authoritarianism. Experience and common sense have little influence, are too often denied, and rejected.
Now Hamilton looks run-down, grubby & shabby in many places. Weeds & potholes (& orange cones) have been an ongoing topic & what seems to be unfair attention given some neighbourhoods over others (Rototuna versus Nawton, Enderley, Bader, & Glenview. And then there is Peacockes & Rotokauri).
Positive publicity about Hamilton Gardens, the Zoo, and events is ‘nice to have’, but overwhelmed by people’s personal experience of dealing with this council, with excessive costs & time demands.
I’m not recommending a zero rates increase. I’m in favour of a simple clean easy-to-understand CV system (which satisfies the ancient traditional requirement for taxation), and so I’m also opposed to the ‘special rates’ proposed. One purse, please.
I am recommending this council stops, brings in an independent team of skilled locals to dig much more deeply, and set sights on a much-improved future. Better than consultants.
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Consultation finishes on 21 April 2024 for the Hamilton City Council Long-term Plan 2024-2034
