Why do we Love to Hate Council?

I can pretty confidently say at least 90 percent of the time a sentence includes the words “the council” it will be a negative one. Let’s look at the facts, our councils hold an extremely important position and yet they’re thought of in a very negative light. Now why is that?

Well there are several layers to this issue, first and foremost of this is just human nature. We’re simple creatures who want to be happy, but unfortunately find it much easier to hold onto the things that bring us down. In a world where many issues are out of our control and put in the hands of others there’s plenty to keep us unhappy. This is exactly the position our councils find themselves in, a world full of people who are seemingly looking for all the issues and lumping it on the ones we believe are responsible. 

But what makes the council responsible? Well the answer is in the question, responsibility. Our councils are given the responsibility to care for many of the services that make our lives easier. The water network, our road system and many other things. Here lies the issue, everytime you drive past an open pothole, who’s responsible? Everytime a drain is blocked where does that responsibility lie? And when you’re waiting on a consent and it seems to be taking far too long, who’s to blame? If you answered the council, you likely wouldn’t be the only one. 

And I haven’t even mentioned the effect social media and the internet have on this. We are constantly being fed information, and so often that information is negative, after all who wants to share a positive news article about the council. You are much more likely to share, council blunder causes hours of delays on highways, compared to council holds successful light show.

Why though, is this such a big deal? Why is it so frustrating? Well I have a very simple answer and you probably have it too, money. Yes our rates, the bills we pay every year that provide us these services. We feel they should be fixing all the issues that are popping up around us. But what happens when you aren’t the only one wanting your problems fixed, in fact what happens when there are thousands of other people who also want their problems fixed? Prioritisation, there comes a time when there are just too many problems to fix at once, too many jobs to sort and unfortunately some peoples issues will be taken care of before others and unsurprisingly this makes us unhappy.

Now let’s take a look at the council more closely. In particular let’s look at Wellington’s. Did you realize the council employs over 1800 people? Did you realize they offer over 400 services? All of which contributes to the massive sum of 660 million dollars, that is in the council’s budget. The fact is the council is everywhere, making sure everything runs as it should and even throwing in some awesome events that wouldn’t be possible without its support.

That’s what we at Wellington live really want to actively show you, firstly the council is doing it’s absolute best, in fact we would even say they’re doing a great job. We want to show you all the good the council does, not to mention making sure you know about all the events they’re organizing. So the next time you get fed up with the council just remember all the good they do for you and the community around you.