Nelson mayoral contender Aaron Stallard has formally launched his campaign with a promise to make the council more transparent and democratic, if elected. 

The first-term councillor wanted to re-establish the council’s main standing committees to reverse the “unhealthy concentration of power” that has developed over the last three years under Mayor Nick Smith. Smith, on his election, led a restructuring of how the elected members provided oversight of council activities. 

The earlier approach, favoured by Stallard, saw committees focused on broad areas of council work – such as infrastructure, or community and recreation. 

All elected members sat on those committees, which sat publicly, published meeting agendas and minutes, and had the power to make some decisions. 

The new approach, initiated by Smith, sees smaller taskforces with membership of only a few elected members that focus on single issues or policies – such as the re-opening of the Elma Turner Library or climate change. 

The taskforces are intended to provide quick guidance to staff and develop recommendations for the full council of elected members to then consider and decide on. 

However, they meet behind closed doors, don’t publish agendas or minutes, and their notes can only be accessed by lodging Local Government and Official Information and Meetings Act (LGOIMA) requests. 

Though some committees remain in place – such as the Audit, Risk, and Finance Committee – Stallard said the loss of the council’s main committees reduced democracy and transparency. 

“The resulting lack of governance oversight also resulted in problems such as the planting of 20,000 exotic redwoods in the Maitai and a loss of $5m of transport funding,” he added. 

The council agreed to a taskforce recommendation to transition away from commercial clear-fell pine forestry in November 2023. 

However, Stallard was later surprised by a decision made by council staff several months later to replant 20.5 hectares of the redwoods in the Maitai Valley rather than native trees which, he said, was against the recommendations outlined in the taskforce’s report. 

He also said councillors were told “out of the blue” in August 2023 that the council would lose access to funding from the Government’s Transport Choices programme to construct a cycleway linking the Brook and Waimea Road due to a lack of project capacity. 

Both issues wouldn’t have occurred with the greater councillor oversight which committees provided, Stallard said. 

But Smith, who was also running to be re-elected, defended the decision to get rid of the larger committees, which he said re-litigated issues which had already been debated. 

“It was inefficient, costly, and frustrating for both councillors as well as staff.” 

Smith said the changes had successfully improved council culture, highlighting that there had been 10 code of conduct issues over the two terms preceding his mayoralty which had cost “tens of thousands of dollars”, and none during his tenure. 

The changes also enshrined democracy by ensuring decisions were only made at full council meetings to allow participation of all elected members, and improved transparency by reducing the number of meetings journalists needed to report on, he said. 

Smith disagreed that committees would have solved the two issues specifically raised by Stallard, attributing them instead to “tensions” between some councillors and staff decisions about the council’s forestry transition, but that a newly-hired forest manager would get the plan “on track”, as well as a “ridiculous” Government timeframe to complete the cycleway project while the council was grappling with storm recovery. 

However, he added that he was “open-minded” about having another look at the council structure next term. 

The council reviewed the taskforce structure in August 2023 after they had been in place for several months. 

At the time, Stallard attempted to return to committees, while keeping some taskforces, but his proposal was defeated by five votes to eight. 

The Chief Ombudsman also called for all council workshops to be open to the public by default in October 2023. 

Though this is already the case in Nelson, the recommendation calls into question the privacy of the council’s taskforces. 

In addition to returning to committees to increase transparency, Stallard pledged to investigate opportunities to increase community involvement in council decisions, such as through citizens’ assemblies and the participatory budget setting, as was recommended by the Review into the Future of Local Government. 

“Such improved participation… is especially suited to working through complicated or controversial issues, and for avoiding the sort of messy and divisive process we experienced with Plan Change 29 that dealt with housing intensification.” 

Stallard’s other project priorities included the Rocks Road walking and cycling boulevard, a central city civic hub, addressing climate change, and tackling air pollution. 

Running against Stallard and Smith were Richard Osmaston and John Wakelin. 

-Local Democracy Reporting is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air

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