New energy and expertise

Image Mark Coote

Towards the end of 2018, long-standing Community Board member Steve Eckett resigned as Deputy Chair and member due to work commitments. Because the vacancy occurred less than 12 months before the date of the next triennial election, 12 October 2019, a by-election was not required to fill the vacancy. The Board had the option to either leave the vacancy unfilled, or appoint a suitably qualified person from the community to fill the vacancy until the October 2019 election. Welcome then to Judith!

Judith has lived in Paekākāriki for almost three years and greatly enjoys the vitality of the village and the friendliness of its people. “It is a great honour to have the chance to contribute something back to the community that has already given so much warmth and delight to relative newcomers like me” she says.

Dr Aitken has four children and eleven grandchildren, all of whom live in or near to Paekākāriki. She was a Playcentre supervisor, a school teacher and then a university lecturer, then joined the Public Service where she worked for twenty years before retiring from the Education Review Office. 

“I hope that work as an elected member of the Wellington Regional Council and the Capital and Coast District Health Board for many years have given me some idea of what might be expected of a Community Board member, especially since such boards are always much closer to what communities actually see as important in their daily lives and immediate environment than other larger and more distant agencies.”

Judith is actively interested in such issues as the stability of our seawall; reducing dangerous speeding on our streets; ensuring that we always have clean drinking water; encouraging self-sufficiency in electric power; supporting the accessibility and sustainability of small parks, playgrounds, community gardens, walkways and waterways; collaborating on optimal ways to develop the ways in which land that becomes surplus to NZTA’s requirements; and encouraging the rich and diverse cultural, social and recreational activities for which this village is admired and famous.

Judith hopes that anyone who would like an issue considered or promoted by the Community Board will get in touch with her or her Board colleagues through our website.