MAYOR-elect Celia Wade-Brown wants to include everyone in her decision-making process: but that doesn’t mean she’ll be trying to please everyone.
One of her election platforms was an inclusive council, where everyone’s voice would be heard.
“I’m hoping that we’ll have the opportunity for community groups to come in – before any budgets or anything – and talk with the new council. It’s not that we haven’t done it before either. It’s just one of the things that come up: that council doesn’t listen,” Wade-Brown says from behind her desk on her first Monday in her new job.
“This is about making sure that everyone’s heard.”
She is in no way saying, though, that everyone will be pleased.
“It’s a political environment and it’s a resource allocation. We would need an infinite budget to please everyone. That’s going to provide some challenges at the moment, given that we’ve got the pressures of leaky homes.”
Council voted unanimously in September to commit to the Government’s financial assistance package, which commits it to a 25 percent share of the bill of repairing leaky homes, a projected $70 million liability.
She’s not giving too much away when she’s asked about her response to some councillors who were reported saying that Wade-Brown had not spoken to them about the makeup of the council (although she’d only been just a day in the job). Her response is diplomatic and calm.
“I had spoken to some of them,” she says. “It’s understandable in change that people may be nervous that they won’t be included and I want to assure them that they would be [where their strengths are] – and I can’t quite do everything in 24-hours.”
Wade-Brown had her first formal speaking announcement on October 18 at the New Zealand Recreation Associations National Conference. She will be sworn in on October 27, and her mother-in-law and son will both travel from the South Island to attend the inauguration.
“I actually wish my parents were still alive to see this – but they were alive to see me become a councillor and see around the council chambers and so on.”
Committee announcements will be made at the first meeting on the new council in November.
When asked who she’ll have as her deputy mayor, Wade-Brown wouldn’t say because she wants councillors to be the first ones to hear, though she’d had some, “thoughts and discussions and I’m not ready to share them”.