Twenty-four hours from now local election voting closes. Time is ticking to tick those boxes, lick that envelope and proudly post your papers off, thus exercising your democratic right to vote for your chosen local government representatives.

Too bad it’s a little difficult to pick out many of the candidates’ actual policy ideas.

Let’s take some of the Wellington candidates for example. By all appearances we have some honest, nice, pleasant folk.

Contributing to local charities is a wonderful thing. So is giving up your weekends to coach footy. It’s nice to know that our local candidates have the guts to take the plunge and raise a family. They appear to be extremely giving, they like our national sports, and know the struggles of parenthood.

The problem is, none of this builds a single new house, makes our water flow when it should, or gets us to the salt mines on time via public transport. Personal achievements tell us virtually nothing about actual grass-roots policy – what are they going to do for your community, why, and how?

Personalities are important. We do actually want to like the person we are voting for. However, a manifesto should be like a business plan. At the very least it needs to list who the person is, get straight into their vision for the community, and then take that tactical leap into why this is important for the local community and how they plan to implement their policies.

We seem to have a lot of independents in 2013, and in the absence of policy promises, voters should at least be given some clues as to where on the political spectrum the candidates are aligned. Although each candidate may have their valid reasons for not wanting to appear on the traditional left-right pendulum, it does help to know where they sit in their political alignment because many Kiwis identify themselves that way when they vote. They are trying to match the person on the paper to their own political leanings and value systems.

Local governments are important, much more so than current political fashion in New Zealand may suggest. They manage the nuts and bolts of our communities. Therefore, being able to sketch out an actual plan to build on the stated vision within an election manifesto is essential in making sure we have the right candidates to hammer the nails in.