Trysts are nothing more than arranged meetings, often in secret.  Trusts are legal entities created for pursuing specific purposes in an open and transparent manner.  Often Trusts become no more than Trysts when the leadership lacks the passion and, or skills and experience to effectively pursue the Trust Purpose.  They become a series of “going through the motions” type of meetings that accomplish little more than meaningless reports.

Whangarei District Council has created a number of Trusts to help in the fulfillment of its mission “To create the ultimate living environment.” The role of WDC councillor is time consuming enough without burdensome “additional duties” in the form of serving as Chairpersons of Trusts such as the Clock Museum, Quarry Gardens, etcetera.  The concept of using trusts for such purposes is founded in encouragement of community participation, eliciting the best skills and experience from the community, and operating in an effective, efficient manner that stands up to independent expectations against objective criteria. 

The leadership of such public service oriented Trusts must not only possess the requisite skills, knowledge and experience to inspire and evoke effective community participation, but also avoid any real or merely perceived conflicts of interest.  Perceptions are real to the perceiver!  Such potential conflicts go beyond pecuniary interests and include time availability, personal interest in and passion for the Purpose of the Trust, and self-perceptions regarding both people-skills and technical skills and knowledge.  Trust leadership is a big job with big responsibilities.  Such roles should be left to other successful managers and leaders in the community rather than being fulfilled by a District Counselor; being a Councillor is a huge enough job by itself.

When Councillors serve as Chairpersons of WDC created Trusts, not only are their attention, time, and focus diverted from the business of representing the primary interests of citizens who elected them, but also any semblance of independence is lost.  To the extent that such Trusts receive financial support from the citizens through rates, such Councillor/Chairpersons are then both the funds requesters and funds dispensers of public money.  And to make matters worse, any semblance of fair performance review of Trust Chairpersons and actual Trust accomplishment of mission is compromised by the fact that the Chairperson writes his/her own review for submission to him or her self as Councillor on the overseeing WDC.  Such a leadership arrangement is clearly at odds with principles of accountability for any type of organisation.

As a Principle of operations, no WDC Councillor should serve as Chairperson of any Trust that is created by or funded to any degree by WDC.  Service on the Board of such Trusts could fulfill a useful purpose for efficient and effective liaison between the Council and Trust when appropriate to the Trust’s mission.  However, the Chairperson of such Trusts should be totally independent from Council influence in any way.  Only in this manner can such leadership best serve the public interest, be seen as free of hidden agendas (conscious or unconscious), free of perceptions of funding improprieties and avoid perceptions of seeking of political goodwill.