The Otago Regional Council is not endorsing any proposal for a planned merger of councils in the province. The council had a meeting yesterday where it agreed to delegate chairwoman Hilary Calvert and deputy chairman Kevin Malcolm to provide support and input around the changes in local government. Central government had wanted councils to come up with merger proposals by August 9. The ORC was set to be swallowed by any new authority or authorities. Ms Calvert said she and Cr Malcolm would ensure any changes to the local government structure in Otago would highlight the regional council’s priorities around the importance of catchment management and managing environmental matters. Cr Calvert said the most useful part of the regional council’s role was to be enthusiastic about the work being done by the territorial authorities and making it clear what was important to the regional council — the environment and the river catchments. Cr Michael Laws asked Cr Calvert if she thought any proposal would come out of the five councils. “It is very hard to read the tea leaves on this one. We do know they have been galvanised around this,” she said. Cr Laws said they had an general election in four months and there were bound to be changes in local government structure. He was challenged by Cr Malcom over how it was relevant to the issue they were discussing. Cr Laws said it was relevant as the regional council needed to find where it stood in the future make-up of local government. The council had yet to discuss this and needed to start this in the future. Cr Calvert said it was an ongoing moving feast of how local government would look. Once it was decided, that was when the hard work would happen. “But this is an opportunity for us. Whatever they get for Otago, we need to say the environment stuff is really important us.”
