Ngaruawahia says no extra cash for Raglan community projects

When Bob MacLeod, Deputy Chair of the Raglan Community Board Deputy, read the 2016 Candidate election booklet, he optimistically thought that Ngaruawahia was moving to give more responsibilities to community boards.

It seemed quite clear, the Candidate election booklet says that community boards have significant delegations. One mentioned in the booklet is that community boards have a ‘small local improvement budget’.

In the past the Raglan Community Board has had to dip into its small discretionary grant fund if it wanted to do an improvement project.

Raglan 23 asked the Waikato District Council to advise the value of the ‘small local improvement budget’ allocated to the Raglan Community Board for the 2016/17 financial year.

A spokesperson for the WDC said, “The Raglan Community Board budget for the 2016/2017 year is $14,271, plus $6718 which has been carried forward from 2015/2016 (so $20,989 in total). This money can be used for events, other community projects or on election-related activities. It is up to the Community Board to decide how they spend the funds.”

So while community boards in other districts do have an allocated budget for small community improvement projects in addition to their grant fund that is not happening for Raglan.

The most recent financial report of the Raglan Board’s discretionary fund does not show any funds allocated for community projects.

So it does seem that what Raglanite John Lawson said recently is right, “Only a new mayor and several new councillors will change the way council wastes money and delivers poor services because it’s too centralised. In their terms the delegations are significant. We need candidates willing to listen to local views to get the rates savings and better services which councils like Tasman and Thames-Coromandel are already enjoying.”

Mayoral candidates Brian Cathro and Wally Hayes are both advocates of a change from the top down centralised approach of current Mayor Allan Sanson.