It recently came to light that five more Hong Kong district councillors have skipped town. Two had said openly they would rather quit than take a new oath of allegiance to the city, but didn’t mention their intention to flee. Some reportedly left before tendering their resignations. When one is remunerated for public service one cannot or has no intention of rendering, it counts at the very least as dereliction of duty and betrayal of public trust. By nature, this is a matter of grave public concern. Yet, the Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau says it is too busy now to hold by-elections for district councils. There are more than 400 district council seats in this city. Although the overhaul of our electoral system means that district councils have definitely been downgraded , they are still expected to have some functions. Deng Zhonghua, deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macau Office of the State Council, in an interview with CGTN a few weeks ago, explained Beijing’s rationale for dropping district councils from the Election Committee that selects the chief executive. He said Beijing meant to “restore their status as defined by the Basic Law”; in other words, district councils should go back to being district organisations that have no political power. It is also clear from this that the central government sees the one and only electoral reform package this city’s legislature managed to pass, in 2010 , as a misstep. That was the package that gave district councillors seats in the Legislative Council and the Election Committee, which Deng said “changed the nature and status of district councils and enabled them to exert excessive influence”. Article 97 of the Basic Law states that district councils “are not organs of political power”. Therefore, when given actual seats and influence in the legislature and the election process of the chief executive, they were allowed to overstep their constitutional limits and “mutate into a platform for opposing China and destabilising Hong Kong”, in Deng’s words. What was political empowerment in 2010 is now political deviance. But in order to make district councils “less politically oriented”, as Deng put it, it would take more than stripping them of their roles in the Election Committee. Hong Kong election reform: banning blank votes would open a Pandora’s box District councils are returned by popular vote and carry a mandate: that is why they were given seats at the table of political influence in the first place. This is political power that carries the weight of public consent and lends legitimacy that the chief executive could use. Even though they are not organs of political power, district councils now have to keep within the parameters of “patriots administering Hong Kong” . Their role in “administering” the city – whether in a consultative capacity or an assisting role – is political in nature. According to Deng, the overhaul will “bring district councils back on track so that they can play their due role of serving local communities”. The councils are expected to “concentrate on promoting the well-being of grass-roots communities, provide valuable and constructive suggestions to the [Hong Kong special administrative region] government, and work as a bridge connecting the government and ordinary people”. Perhaps one way forward then is to treat them as government advisory and statutory bodies. District councils are already counted among Hong Kong’s 500 advisory and statutory bodies. To bring them in line with Beijing’s expectations and rid them of political influence, district councils could be filled by government appointment again. As with other advisory and statutory bodies, interested individuals can indicate their willingness to participate, submit their curriculum vitae to the government and put their names forward for consideration. That way, the government can apply its appointment practices and principles that would ensure youth participation, set term limits, and increase participation. If district councils are treated and run as community services – as opportunities for members of the public to participate in public affairs as opposed to popular contests – district council members and voters would no longer have illusions about, and expectations of, their roles. Alice Wu is a political consultant and a former associate director of the Asia Pacific Media Network at UCLA