Whangarei District Council wants to “restructure” quietly while our community is distracted by elections. In case you’re not familiar with the term, ‘restructuring’ tends to mean sacking faithful workers and creating more jobs for the boys. In this case, WDC’s proposed restructure creates two $140,000 jobs.

WDC chief executive Rob Forlong has told the Advocate he aims to create an "agile" organisation because that’s what the new Council will want after October’s elections. WDC has paid for a report by consultants guiding the proposed restructure. The report talks of a lean and low-cost operation. It’s nice the new council may come with low rates – but those low rates could mean low staff numbers and more investment in expensive senior management. The Whangarei restructure will bring a strategic leadership team rather than group managers and this team will prevent things going “pear-shaped and ending up on the front page of the Advocate” in Mr Forlong’s words.

The first phase of the restructure will be finalised well before the elections – it’s said that it will be done by end of September.  

My question and yours should be: why are they pushing this restructure through now, just before an election? Is it because Council can get around any backlash and there will be little public attention devoted to Council’s mistakes while everyone is preoccupied with October’s election? Is Council going to rush through changes to urban and business zoning in its interests but against the community’s interest?

A restructure may seem harmless, and might even be good practice, however any action that is done by Council during the 3 month window of an election can and could be reversed by a new Council.  This is what the CEO is facing. This restructure along with other actions by Council at this time could be classified as electioneering. So is the CEO playing a safe game?

Over the past 3 years, concerns have been raised about the leadership of the existing Whangarei Council, however right now, in my view, we are seeing electioneering on another scale, with staff getting involved.  Wasn’t the last CEO called into question about the same actions?