Cr Lawton spoke at a function last night farewelling her and four other councillors who are not standing for re-election.
She sent her speech to the Otago Daily Times.
Her reflections were shared on behalf of her mother and former regional councillor Maggie Lawton, who died in 2017, she said.
In her speech she said the incoming council needed to ''take an entirely new position'' if it was to do better than the current council.
The council had ''not been good governors'', she said.
''This term has had its ups and downs.
''The ups have been the various ways I have had the privilege of working with and supporting my community to have a voice at the council table and take action.
''It will be no surprise to most of you that the downs have largely been the frustrations felt from sitting around the council table.''
She hoped decisions in the future were ''not made on the premise of blindly holding on to and defending past decisions'' and not apologising for failures or admitting mistakes.
It also should not act ''as the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff''.
''We have had a terrible habit of leaving decisions until as late as possible in order to narrow the options, in some cases leaving no real options therefore not needing to make a decision.''
The council also had a conviction it could solve major issues on its own, but needed to define and engage in community partnership.
The council had made some progress, she said.
''The new plans and strategies we have created this term - particularly where they have been made in partnership with others - are a step in the right direction, but as with all ORC's plans, my feeling is that we have not gone far enough.
''I believe that unless we take this new triennium as an opportunity to significantly change the way we do things, we will see a cyclical issue. That by the time we need to review these plans the community will again be disheartened, telling us it is too little, too late.''
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"The council also had a conviction it could solve major issues on its own, but needed to define and engage in community partnership." This is a backwards concept of reality. The Council is elected by the people to represent them. Election to office is not a mandate to contrive and autocratically pursue some other agenda (e.g. a "vision") with engagement (social engineering the likes of Sue Bidroses request that Dunedenites don't think bad thoughts about scooters) in the community. That is the opposite of how it is supposed to work.
I completely agree that the Otago Regional Council needs to make a far better effort to engage with the communities it represents. It is remote and it’s only contact with most citizens is only once in three years when they vote. For years, ORC meetings have been held in its Stafford St premises which are not readily accessible by public transport and on a steep street not easy for those with mobility issues. ORC does not vidéo meetings and the audio recording is hard to follow. ORC’s website has little or no information about governance and how members of the public can follow the business of the Council, as I do with the Dunedin City Council. Dunedin STILL has no functioning residents and ratepayers’ association at any local government level. Democracy cannot be truly accountable without at least some citizens paying at least some attention because otherwise there is no-one for the Council to be accountable to. Let’s hope there is the will to make significant improvement this coming triennium from both the public and the governance side of the fence.