Selwyn Mayor Lydia Gliddon said she preferred “to be in the tent than out of the tent” amid ongoing local government reforms.
“In my view, there is power in numbers in the situation we have in front of us,” she said.
Councils have 53 days to submit plans to the Government on how to amalgamate with other councils in their region, which came on top of rates capping and Resource Management Act reforms.
Councillors voted six to two to remain a part of the national association, which represents councils across the country.
Gliddon voted to retain the membership along with Sophie McInnes, Denise Carrick, Rhys Laraman, Aaron McGlinchy, and Sarah Barnsley.
Samuel Wilshire and John Verry voted against renewing the council’s membership, while councillor Tracey Macleod and deputy mayor Brendan Shefford abstained. Elizabeth Mundt was absent from the meeting.
The annual membership costs $63,000 and provides the council with five votes at LGNZ’s annual general meeting, with additional costs for event tickets.
LGNZ was previously chaired by Sam Broughton, who resigned from the association after losing the mayoralty in October.
“I was probably one of the ones that thought it was a waste of money… but I went to the LGNZ (conference) in Christchurch and did change my mind, and one of the things that changed my mind is that different people are leading it,” she said.
Wilshire labelled LGNZ “a bunch of headless chickens”.
Wilshire has been an opponent of the group since last year’s local government election campaign.
“I don’t like the fact that at the AGM, how many votes you get depends on the size of the membership fee,” Wilshire said.
He said the councils best placed to navigate local government reform were those not affiliated with LGNZ.
Currently, seven councils do not belong to the association, including Christchurch and Auckland.
McInnes, the longest-serving current councillor, described LGNZ as “immensely valuable”.
“At the moment, there are an awful lot of webinars on the reform programme barrelling towards us like a freight train, and that is information we would struggle to get access to directly otherwise,” she said.
McInnes said LGNZ provides support for elected members in an otherwise “lonely job”.
“This is the closest you have to a union as an elected member. There are support groups for women, there is access to counselling through this.
“We don’t get access to any of this because we are not employees of a council,” she said.
