City councillor

Korero (AEWS), Volume 2, Issue 22, 6 November 1944, Page 31

City councillor

A KORERO Report

His uniform is a lounge suit, and he wears no medals. There is, perhaps, a tendency to girth that a P.T. instructor would soon correct. But ready to put a wealth of experience garnered in the business world at the disposal of his fellowburgesses, he has volunteered, and been accepted by the electors, for civic service. The arena of the Council Chamber has its victories no less than the battlefield. The goal is the progress of the city, and the enemy anything which hampers that progress. So our City Councillor, typical of his colleagues in the Wellington Council, a city itself typical of the four main centres in New Zealand, smiled when asked what Councillors did bar talk. Certainly meetings are the medium by which the business of the Council is decided, its policies debated, and its decisions made. And talk there is. But talk with a purpose, talk that clarifies opinions, hammers ideas into shape, and ensures that the actions taken will be straightforward.

On first being elected, a Councillor is appointed to several committees, usually at least four.' In these committees, each of them dealing with a specific aspect of the Corporation’s activities, discussion is more detailed

and, in* the absence of press and public, freer. As a Councillor finds his feet, he may ask to be appointed to a particular committee on which his experience and talents can be of benefit. And as seniority comes he may be elected to the chairmanship of a committee. Then it will be his task to guide newer members, to control the meetings, to indicate past and future policy. And once a month, when the full Council holds its regular meeting, open to press and public, the work of the committee may be debated and the chairman will be on hand to support and, if necessary, explain the measures his committee has taken. Once a month also the whole Council meets as the Finance and Property Committee. The committee is, you might say, the work-bench of the Council. A perusal of the names of some of the committees of the Wellington City Council will show how widespread and comprehensive are the authority and interests of that body in the lives of its citizens. The work of the Tramways, Electricity, and Streetlighting Committee aids the Wellingtonian

on his way home from the office or factory; a Health, Sanitation, Cemeteries, and Abattoirs Committee, to give it its full name, helps to keep him fit ; and any city ordinances he may encounter have first been

debated in the By-laws Committee. To add to his enjoyment during leisure hours is the job of the Reserves, Public Gardens, Parks, and Bathing Beaches Committee ; and when his wife takes in the morning bottle from the front doorstep, remember the Milk Committee has a hand in its arrival. Without completing the list there is also a Works Committee, a Housing and Town Planning Committee, an Airport Committee, a Legislation, Leasehold, and Library Committee, an Estimates Committee, an Appeal Committee : the names and functions may, probably, will differ in one city from another, but in all cities that is where the groundwork of local administration is done.

By virtue of his civic position, a Councillor may be appointed to the boards of several institutions and bodies outside the Council. In Wellington the Art Gallery, the Observatory, and Victoria University College, to name some, have a Local City Councillor on their governing boards. And since the war numerous local organizations formed for patriotic purposes have called on members of the Council to preside at their meetings or serve on their committees.

Citizens with a grievance or a scheme for the betterment of the city both look upon the Councillor, rightly in a democracy, as their point of contact with the powers-that-be. He is truly one of the city fathers. To the one he can indicate the right channel of approach for the ventilation of his grievance, explain away the grievance, or intercede with officialdom. For the other, if his proposal has merit, the Councillor can assist in stimulating interest by the relevant authorities or officials.

Service on the Council does something to the citizen. Before his election he may be full of plans as to what he will do to the Council. After some years as a

Councillor it does something to him. He becomes more proud than ever of his city. Not only because of a sentimental affection for the city where he lives and

works, and was possibly born, but because he has been privileged to see the machinery of local government in action and take his turn in the engineroom. Like Paul of old, he feels “ a citizen of no mean city.”

The long hours of unpaid work, the misunderstandings inevitable among human i beings, the tedious debate, the abuse and derision which at one time or another strike any one with the temerity to enter public lifeall these are more than cancelled by the satisfaction of having a hand in the running of your own city, of having striven to leave things a little better than you found them.

And when the war is won and thousands of men return to New Zealand from overseas, this generation of city fathers hopes that those men who, keeping their eyes open and their minds clear, have seen how cities in other parts of the world are run, and can appreciate what in their own home towns is good and what . needs improvement, will answer the call to civic service and give their best to the towns they will live in.