I came home the other day to see the Gardener’s car parked outside, so, presuming he was hard at it, I wandered into the garden to see what he was up to. The sound of the secateurs in action caused me to look at the citrus trees and there I spotted him, immersed in the lemon tree and wearing a full camouflage outfit with a jaunty beret. No wonder he was hard to spot.
I wandered over, greeted him and asked what the purpose of the uniform was. He stood up, putting my secateurs in one of his many pockets and announced, “Its practice. I need to be comfortable with the uniform for when I launch the coup.” This deserved a beer and discussion I felt, so I indicated the beer fridge and the Gardner nodded eagerly. Shortly we were both comfortably ensconced with beer in hand and I asked “A coup? Who do you want to take over and why?”
My companion took a deep breath. “The why is because nothing happens around here. No beach protection; stormwater problems; ageing waste system; no footpath at Simpsons Beach and our rates are going up; and that’s just the start of the list.” “The rates shouldn’t be going up much,” I remarked. The Gardener’s nostrils started to flare, and he stood up to explain “If rates go up and services provided go down, then that is the same as big rates increase; yet the Council acts like it is being clever. Let’s see them do the same amount of work more efficiently, lift council productivity and give ratepayers an increase in value!”
“Understand your point of view,” I responded. “Productivity and efficiency gains would demand work at the staff level, and possibly an attitude change. I cannot see that happening quickly. I’ve been following various reports in The Informer. An example is that proposed bund at the Taputapuatea Reserve. The Councillors said it could go ahead last year but, one flood and four months later and still very little has been done. All delays seem to have come from the staff management level and there is no indication of how it is going. It was only a couple of days work, and a good operations manager would have had that done late last year. Now that is a level of productivity council staff need to aspire to if we are to get better value out of our rates spend.”
The Gardener enthusiastically announced, “That is why there must be a coup! We need to force change, so I am gathering a small guerrilla force and when we are ready, we will take over the Community Board! We will get some things happening”.
I tried not to laugh as he did appear to be serious. I thought I should give him some more understanding, so I took a deep breath and explained. “Taking over the Community Board won’t do you much good as firstly you will need to have a meeting to agree on what you are going to do before announcing it to the people”. The Gardner nodded; “So?”
I carried on. “The staff only let you have a meeting when they have trained you on their version of how things are done and feel that they have time for a meeting. This is likely to take some months. Then once you have had your first meeting you won’t be able to release a public report on it until the staff have read it, adjusted it and so on. It’s a slow process that gets you nowhere.”
The Gardner looked dismayed and said, “That takes you back to school days when we were run by some old spinster teachers with a mean streak. Must be some better way of achieving change. I was hoping to avoid driving to Thames but then, maybe we need to take over the Mayor’s office”.
I didn’t want to dent his enthusiasm. “Think about Wellington’s new Council building where the staff have put the mayor’s office down at the basement level whereas the staff are up high with great views. Just think about this; visiting dignitaries can gaze at the graffitied walls of the car park when meeting with the mayor while Cheryl from accounts and her buddies gaze out at great views of the harbour. Who do you think really makes the decisions?”
The Gardner looked quite forlorn. “So, if I want real change, it looks like I need to take over the staff. But that sounds a little bit like getting a job and that was never the point of the coup”. He held out his bottle which I clinked with mine and said, “Cheers. It’s hard to get the perfect Council mate.”
