Frank's Memoirs
Community Council
The third time I was
elected to a committee was at Paihia, when in 1974 I became a member of the
Community Council, which had much wider powers in fact than the school
committees had had. The County Council allowed us to set the rates; we drew
them up and they ratified the decision in practice. The Treasurer also was very
helpful in this process.
The Bay of Islands
County was in a unique situation: it included seven little towns, so that the
urban population was roughly the same as the rural sector. Kaikohe was a borough
in its own right, but the other six had community councils which were
encouraged to make recommendations on their own affairs, which were usually
listened to and adopted by the County Council.
I found this system
worked well; if it had not, the towns would have been swamped by the
arrangement of wards and seats on the county council, which gave around
two-thirds of the votes to the rural wards.
Health
In 1986 the Taranaki
Hospital Board was considering its options under the Government’s policy to
establish Area Health Boards so that the emphasis in health would shift from
treatment to prevention. They set up a Community Consultation Committee, and I
was asked to join it. It was chaired by Dan Holmes, the Hospital Board
Chairman, and its secretary was John Eady, CEO of the Hospital Board. Also in
attendance were Peter Matthews and Janice Wenn, the two top clinical
administrators.
After several months’
discussions and consultations with public meetings around the province, the
Area Health Board was introduced in 1988, by which time I was an employee of
the Board.
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