In The Sun last week, Andrew van Dadelszen broadsided the current CEO of the BoP Regional Council (Mary-Anne MacLeod) and sideswiped the current councillor team along the way.
In politics, a personal attack is political. To suggest that the issues faced by almost every local government in the country are in any way special to a particular CEO at a particular time is nonsense.
Lambasting Local Government (LG) for struggling with its broad array of tasks is neither reasonable, nor fair. Beating up LG for failing to be efficient is pure rubbish, as the failing Auckland amalgamation experiment shows.
Removing some of those responsibilities should reduce costs (= lost jobs), but they need to be taken up elsewhere, and central government has failed to explain how that will happen and be paid for. Worst case scenario is that yet another cost will be delegated to the environment for absorption.
Most importantly, regional councils have responsibility to maintain clean water, ensure that ecosystems continue functioning, save kai moana for the table, and give us forests and lakes to enjoy. If 'efficiency” really means a reduced ability to achieve those outcomes, then we need to consider the future very carefully indeed before walking that path.
The BoP needs visionary leadership from a regional council aiming to deliver a healthy environment to future generations in the context of a sustainable economy now. What it does not need is aggressive politicking designed to alienate the very people employed to implement that vision.

Ian McLean, Avenues.