ECan Transition

Stuff reports:

Environment Canterbury (ECan) will be run by a mix of elected councillors and government-appointed commissioners from next year.

A fully-elected council will return in 2019.

Environment Minister Nick Smith on Wednesday announced the new governance model would be a 7-6 split between councillors and commissioners, to be in place after the next local government elections in 2016.

It is a transitional arrangement before a fully elected council takes over in 2019.

The decision to get rid of the elected Council was the right one. They were incompetent and dysfunctional and failing in their statutory requirements.

But an appointed Council was always a temporary solution to get ECan back on track.

The move to a mixed appointed and elected Council is a sensible step on the way to full elections.

However I think the Government should have gone to the mixed model in 2013 and have full elections in 2016.

It’s good the majority of governors will be elected councillors. But personally I’d have it tilted more towards elected – say 9 to 4.