Kia ora

This email is an update on an email you may have received earlier from the Community Board recently about the Hutt City Representation Review, which amoung other things has recommended the disestablishment of Community Boards.

Make your voice heard

We would encourage you to make your views known on this proposal through a submission. Written submissions close on Thursday 1 August, with oral submissions to follow.

https://haveyoursay.huttcity.govt.nz/representation-review 

If you would like more information, there are sample submissions from other Eastbourne residents, plus further information on this page.

ECB Board member(s) will be in the Eastbourne Library/Hub tomorrow (Thursday) from 10am-12 if you want to discuss this, or just contact one of your board members 

The Eastbourne Community Board disagrees with this part of the recommendation for a variety or reasons.

There is no suggestion of replacing the boards with any other form of community liaison or consultation, so this channel into the council will be lost.

The Community Board (and the community at large) recognises the importance of a thriving business community in supporting the character and resilience of our community - we actively try to support the local businesses where and where we can. Much of the attractiveness of our village and other areas can be attributed to board activity over the years. The board has played a significant role in the wharf upgrades and of course the Tupua Horo Nuku resilience / shared path project which could be transformative to the community once completed. We are constantly acting on issues that affect businesses, relaying concerns raised and working on solutions. The recently staged Community Resilience Expo was one of many ECB initiatives. 

We feel the review incorrectly focusses on the formal "powers" the boards hold but does not mention the primary role we play in facilitating and representing communications between council, the community, and individuals. Many of the arguments in the review are rhetorical and undermine the integrity of the conclusions, and the Panel's own surveys indicate a strong support for community boards, which they openly contradict.

The cost

Council Information states:  " In 2022/23 it cost $357,983 to run the three boards, including remuneration, overheads, training, technology and miscellaneous costs.". This equates to about $120K per board of 5-6 members (and more than50% is council overheads). In total this is probably less than the cost to 2 FTE council staff, so even if the council replaced the 3 current boards with 3 staff members to manage a fraction of the work the board currently does, the cost would be greater. Compare 2 staff working business hours with 17 community members on-call 24x7.

Communication

The Council relies largely on businesses to track down information that affects them. In Eastbourne we have the community website, Facebook groups, noticeboard in the library window, and email lists such as the one this email is sent to (this list was created during Covid19 restrictions to help us support the Eastbourne businesses). The community board tries to actively engage with the business community, via this list, but also through the Eastbourne Business Group Facebook page  The ECB also actively engages with WREMO and Hutt Chamber of Commerce to pass on useful informaytion and events, notifies on HCC consultations, and gets involved in local business actions (such as Hello Eastbourne) where appropriate.

https://haveyoursay.huttcity.govt.nz/representation-review

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