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Kia ora
You are receiving this email update because you were contacted, exhibited or attended the Community Resilience Expo earlier this year. This event was very well supported by you and we appreciate that, and we have been considering what to do as a follow-up.
One key outcome from the event was recognition that we need to make personal contact with the community, a lot of work but necessary to make sure that the most vulnerable (and often least well connected) are included in any planning and incident responses. This has been identified as a high priority "next-action".
We have also received enquiries from other Hutt City groups and communities interested in doing a similar event, however there is now a threat to any further action.
The review into representation in our city has recommended among other things, the dissolution of the existing community boards. This means that there would be no elected or formally constituted representation within communities of Hutt City other than ward and city wide councillors, who will not have the same capacity or integration into the community. This also means that activities including organising events such as the Expo as part of wider community resilience actions will become dependent on purely volunteer activity, with no formal connections with council, and no accountability either way.
We believe that in this age of local disruption risk from weather and other natural disasters (and even the very recent global IT disruption), the need for community resilience, and the case for community representation is stronger than ever. Community Resilience is a very broad brush.
One of our key goals for the Expo was to learn and create templates and resources for our future activities, and other communities if they wish to follow the same path. A network of properly constituted and supported boards could collaborate and share such experience, knowledge and resources, acting as a further multiplier of effectiveness.
We hope you agree that retaining community boards in some form, and expanding them to the other wards is a positive goal, rather than just removing the current boards to achieve "fairness" as recommended. We recognise that you may have legitimate reasons for not providing direct support, including conflict of interest, but anything you can do would be appreciated.
Please feel free to contact me if you would like to discuss any aspect of this. We have further information on the Eastbourne.nz website. including links to the Representation Review details and submission options.
And thank you again for your support with this event.
Ngā mihi
Bruce Spedding (Eastbourne Community Board) |
