We recently received detailed questions from the Sunday Star Times about our group’s origins, affiliations, and activities. Some members of the media and community are especially interested in how groups like ours are connected and organiSed. While these enquiries are a normal part of public scrutiny, at times they can shift attention away from the challenges our community faces, especially during an affordability crisis.

Why are we sharing our response now?
Often, information provided to journalists may be condensed or selectively quoted in news stories. By posting both the questions we received and our complete answers, we want to ensure our supporters have direct access to the full context, so everyone can assess the fairness and accuracy of the reporting.

What are journalists asking about?
The enquiries we received focus on the connections between local groups, visual similarities like logos, and whether our members are involved in council elections. Journalists play an important role in asking these questions, but sometimes such focus can raise doubts about the independence of community initiatives.

Our position:
Concerned Ratepayers Kapiti is made up of local residents who are committed to improving council transparency and addressing rising rates. We operate independently and always support open dialogue. As part of our efforts to remain impartial, our policy is that former members seeking public office step back from our group to avoid any conflicts of interest.

Why transparency?
By sharing our process openly—including how we respond to outside enquiries—we want to avoid misunderstandings and empower everyone to draw their own conclusions. We invite our supporters to compare any published stories with our original responses.

What’s next?
We’ll continue to hold public meetings, host forums, and engage in constructive debate, regardless of how our group may be portrayed in the media. If you have questions or would like to discuss our response further, please reach out any time.

Thank you for your ongoing support as we work towards a fairer, more affordable future in Kapiti.  If you want to read our response, continue reading…

To ensure total transparency, we’re sharing our complete response to the Sunday Star Times media enquiry about our group.

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“Thank you for your questions and taking an interest in the important work of Concerned Ratepayers Kapiti. My name is Michael Papesch and I’m the spokesperson for Concerned Ratepayers Kapiti and your email has been given to me by our Secretary for response.

Please accept our apologies for the slight delay in replying to you. We are a voluntary organisation, our members have day jobs and we were hosting a public “meet-the-candidates” meeting in Otaki last night. In those circumstances, it isn’t always easy to be able to respond to media questions within 22 hours, no matter how straightforward they may appear.

Before we get to your specific questions, some information about us.

We are a voluntary group of ordinary people who have become concerned about what we see happening in local government in Kapiti. Some of us have run businesses and are scratching our heads at many of the Council’s decisions from an efficiency perspective, and its inability to control its costs. Some of us have been former senior managers in central and local government, who are also scratching our heads about the twin trends of increasing spending and declining performance in some key areas of the Council’s performance. Others come from other professional backgrounds such as finance and accounting, legal and property management, publishing, civil engineering, finance and accounting, human resources and media. Some have experience in retail, or working with various community organisations.

All of us came together as a group to oppose the 115% rates increase that Council has planned over the next ten years, because we believe that rates hikes of this magnitude are increasingly driving many in the community into an unaffordable situation. Some people are starting to really worry that they will have to leave their homes because they can’t afford the rates. We have spoken to people who have told us they are already losing sleep over this. And we believe that these rates increases are not inevitable. Some simple policy choices can be made that would drastically reduce future rates increases below what the Council plans

It is our belief that the Council is not currently serving the community well in a number of key areas. We believe Council should be more open and transparent about its finances and its performance – beyond the back-patting puff pieces that the Council publishes about itself. We know that residents find it hard get information about the detail of Council activities, spending and decisions, and it is. We have been working at it for the best part of a year now, and we can personally testify how hard it can be to find information on many of the things the Council is doing.

We also believe that the Council should do much better in its engagement with its community. Accountability to the community is being lost to pre-determined agendas, even when ostensibly ‘consulting’ with the community. We believe that Council is not listening to what the community has to say. When engaging with the Council, we come away feeling that you are talking to a brick wall.

Over the past year we engaged with the Council many times on ways to get its spending under control and to deliver a lower rates path. With the election coming up, we are looking to provide good information to support residents’ choices in the election – for example, by hosting “meet the candidates” meetings – and encouraging residents to vote (whoever they wish to vote for). We have held three public meetings so far and even those who do not agree with our policy suggestions have complimented us on how good and engaging these meetings are for residents.

In this context, now to your specific questions.

The catalyst for establishing Concerned Ratepayers Kapiti was a meeting held in October 2024 of various people across the lower half of the North Island, under name of “Concerned Ratepayers”. A number of our eventual committee went to that meeting, and resolved to investigate establishing a Concerned Ratepayers Kapiti. There was one such further meeting of this regional grouping in late 2024. However, it quickly became apparent that the situation and context of each district was different and unique. Kapiti has a different set of issues and challenges to Wellington, and to districts in the Wairarapa. So, from very early on in our existence, we have operated independently of any others who have used the name “Concerned Ratepayers”. Our committee is entirely made up of local Kapiti residents, and our submissions to Council are prepared entirely by our local Committee. There is no input in our governance, or policy development, from anyone else using the label “Concerned Ratepayers” anywhere else in New Zealand.

It is true that Dean Harris was the MC for two meetings. The first was an initial meeting in Paraparaumu to gauge if there was sufficient interest amongst Kapiti residents to establish a Concerned Ratepayers Kapiti group. The second was our first public meeting as Concerned Ratepayers Kapiti. But that’s it. We asked Dean to MC these meetings because he’s very good at it. All our subsequent meetings have been MCed by our local Committee.

Given that, we do not agree that we have an “obvious” connection with Dean Harris’ candidacy. Being an MC for two meeting in late 2024 does not make us “affiliated”, in our view. If you do not agree with that conclusion, we would be interested to know why.

You are correct that Chris Harwood was our previous chair, and is standing for Council, but she resigned from Concerned Ratepayers Kapiti the moment she decided to stand – and well before her candidacy was announced. That is an entirely appropriate course of action for Chris Harwood to take, and we don’t see how that can be construed as Chris Harwood being “affiliated” with Concerned Ratepayers Kapiti. Again, if you do not agree with that conclusion, we would be interested to know why and what actions should have been taken instead when Ms Harwood decided to be a candidate.

We encourage you to direct questions about those candidates to them directly.

I trust this gives you a good overview of our group, its origins, what its purpose and goals are, what we have been doing, and how we have organized ourselves to avoid any suggestion of conflicts. But if you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact me anytime.

Can you please advise the nature of your planned article as there may be further information that we can provide you, to assist you in finalizing your material.

Given that you will be publishing a story, we will post a copy of our reply to you on our Facebook page. We will however remove references to your name and your email address, to protect your privacy.

Thank you again for taking an interest in the important work of Concerned Ratepayers Kapiti.

Cheers,
Michael Papesch
Spokesperson

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