Waitaki district councillors are due to decide on Tuesday whether to join the government’s voluntary Head Start pathway, ahead of a looming August 9 deadline.
Councillors will give their preferences on which councils to partner up with to create a unitary authority.
Waitaki Mayor Mel Tavendale told the audience at a public meeting at the Oamaru Opera House this week there was a ‘‘real need for the smaller councils not to have all the decisions made by a bigger council’’.
‘‘It’s about choosing our destiny rather than waiting for it to be chosen for us,’’ she said.
Wednesday’s meeting was the last of four to be held across the Waitaki district, following meetings in Otematata, Palmerston and Ngapara.
The high-level options being weighed up included an all-Otago authority, a coastal Otago authority (including Dunedin) and a Central Otago option, including the Queenstown Lakes District.
Mrs Tavendale said Waitaki was also looking at a ‘‘more rural option’’, recognising that rural councils had ‘‘a lot of different issues’’ compared with metropolitan ones.
There was a Southern Waters option, in which Gore had also been part of some conversations.
Looking north, there was a ‘‘whole Canterbury-wide discussion’’, focused on the Timaru, Mackenzie, Waimate and Ashburton districts.
The Timaru District Council has put forward this four-council option as its preference.
Waitaki was excluded from the list of preferred options put forward for consultation by the Timaru District Council at a meeting this week, a move Mrs Tavendale described as ‘‘interesting’’.
The Mackenzie District Council said this week a five-council authority was its preference: it plus Waimate, Timaru, Waitaki and Ashburton.
The Waitaki River appears to be crucial to discussions.
The river was described as the ‘‘economic and spiritual’’ part of the district by North Otago farmer David Douglas, whose farm in the Kakanui Mountains is split between the Otago and Canterbury regional councils.
Mr Douglas raised concerns that if Waitaki did not form an alliance with its northern neighbours, the district could be split.
There was strong community feedback to protect the river, Mrs Tavendale told the opera house audience.
‘‘The Waitaki River in particular is something that we’re really strongly trying to protect through this conversation, and we know from the conversations we’ve had in the first three community meetings that our community feel really strongly about that,’’ she said.
Te Rūnanga o Moeraki kaiwhakahaere (manager) Justin Tipa, who sat as a panel member at the meeting, said his first priority would be ensuring the Waitaki catchment ‘‘stays intact’’.
‘‘And I don’t think there’s much chance of that being split up’’.
At Timaru’s council meeting on Tuesday this week, one option included the catchment but excluded Oamaru.
Cr Philip Harper said ‘‘well for one hour now, I’m feeling like the colonial powers of Europe carving up Africa’’.
‘‘And in my view, we’ve got to take in the catchments, especially the Waitaki, because there’s good fishing down there,’’ he said.
Timaru councillor Owen Jackson asked: ‘‘Why is the Waitaki catchment area so important?’’.
‘‘Is it the dams?’’
Timaru Mayor Nigel Bowen said there was ‘‘probably some liability sitting in there with four very small towns, which I think is one of Oamaru’s current problems’’.
Federated Farmers North Otago president Otto Dogterom, a panel member on Wednesday, said there was a risk of getting ‘‘cannibalised’’ by other districts via the backstop process.
Waitaki District Council chief executive Alex Parmley said it would mean a ‘‘long period of uncertainty in which the government shapes the future for you and your community’’.
