I ‘attended’ two council meetings on Wednesday, the HB Regional Council by video in the morning and the Hastings District Council in person in the afternoon.

What a contrast!

HBRC

At the Regional Council (you know, the one the Government Is dissolving), the topics of discussion included:

• The status of a variety of workstreams related to ‘reimagining’ our region’s flood resilience capability, involving a web of citizen and stakeholder focus groups, catchment steering groups, major infrastructure players like  NZ Transport and KiwiRail, and a covey of technical advisors – all coming to a head in June when options will be sorted, prioritised and priced for potential packaging into HBRC’s next long-term plan. Will the investment number be $600 million?

• Then, the final strokes on the Coastal Hazards Strategy, where detailed short-, medium- and long-term options have been developed and extensively tested with the public and, now with funding approaches and costs, also needing to go into the LTP process. Some Councillor sparring, with more to come, evidenced the political sensitivities over who should pay. While short-term actions might cost in the $30 million range, full scale managed retreat could cost $200 million over the next 20 years alone, ultimately climbing to $2 billion over 50-100 years.

• Also, an update on the key cyclone recovery/resilience projects that HBRC has been leading from Wairoa to Porangahau, plus pump station and telemetry upgrades – ten major projects with a cost of $241 million.

All in, these three programmes could account for spending approaching the $1 billion range … most of that yet to come.

• Also on the agenda was review of the Statement of Intent from HBRC’s investment company (HBRIC), which commits that entity to generating an important chunk of that intergenerational spending (aiming for $13.5 million in FY27) from assets valued at $577 million (80% of that the Port).

Pretty grunty stuff, dealt with by 11 councillors.

HDC

Then I went to the Hastings District Council meeting, which, with 15 councillors squeezed elbow-to-elbow at the council table, in tenor more resembling a real-life game of Trivial Pursuit.

To ask and answer questions and voice their impassioned support for the proposals at hand Councillors (and staff) literally popped up and down like jacks-in-the box, a formality totally incongruous with the lightweight matters at hand.

The HDC agenda was loaded with, frankly, minor items that a 5-person volunteer community board might have effectively dealt with – appointing youth representatives to the council and its committees, approving a $1 lease for a fitness pod, proceeding with public consultation on an Eskdale reserve plan, approving changes to the meeting schedule, reviewing Information Act requests. Talk about heavy lifting … are Her Worship the Mayor and 15 Councillors enough horsepower to bear this workload?

The agenda included one potentially substantial topic – launching public consultation on the next Annual Plan, with two options presented: a 5.9% rate increase that requires borrowing to keep the increase down but still fund the essentials the council wants to deliver, versus a 9.1% increase that would fund the spend and balance the budget in the coming year.

I attended the meeting hoping to witness firsthand some fireworks around that. 

I expected neither of these options would satisfy Councillor Steve Gibson, who campaigned promising to cap rates at the inflation level, his position reinforced by the Government, which is headed toward legislating a 2%-4% rates cap on councils.

Indeed, he popped up to object, but Mayor Schollum cautioned that he effectively would appear to be voting against public consultation, not the rates increases themselves. After reflection, he sank back into his seat.

I should have known better. Fireworks from this group would be as likely as an orgy at Mary Doyle.

If Councillor Gibson were true to form, he could have used the occasion to announce his alternative Gibson Inflation Only Budget (GIOB) – identifying the cuts he would champion to enable an Inflation Only Budget – and ask his 7,618 loyal voters to communicate their endorsement of GIOB during the submission process. Hijack the submissions process!

What if his GIO-Budget got more ‘submissions’ endorsing it than the two ‘official’ options? Storm the council building!

Escaping any such theatrics, Mayor Schollum pronounced Councillors and staff had done their assignment in crafting their two options, “well done!” … and now it was time to listen to the people. Or should it be listen but lead?

So, here’s a snap question: Which of these two councils seems more needed?