Your views- City council | Canterbury Opinion | Local Voices from Canterbury, New Zealand

With the city council reported to be in disarray this week, we asked if people thought the situation would be different if the council was replaced by commissioner.

Eve Rolleston, dairy farmer, said: ``There should be a CEO or someone in charge, but I think it's important that at the end of the day the council are answerable to the people.''

Denise Truman, 46, Snorex franchisee, of Parklands, thinks it's ``pretty hard'' that city council chief executive Tony Marryatt is getting paid so much money, ``because we really need it in the eastern suburbs.

``Instead of him getting a pay rise, we should've had a rates decrease or something.''

Patricia Farr, 84, retired of Merivale said: ``The council are totally ineffective, currently.

``There are about six of them who I think have Christchurch's best interests at heart.''.

Peter Ackroyd, 61, of Merivale, said the city council ``has lost track of their true purpose.'' ``There's too much bureaucracy.''

He said a commissioner ``couldn't do any worse.''

Chris Forman, 47, builder, of Merivale, thinks the city council, CERA and ECan ``should all be working together at the moment.''

``We're not really seeing what they're actually intending to achieve. They need to be more open.''

Celia Kennedy, support volunteer, of Riccarton, said:

``I think we need a unified approach to getting on with people's lives.''

``Whoever is in charge, they need to be local.''