Political trade-offs

I am appalled by politicians of every hue, pictured with their silver spades celebrating the joint public/private contract for Transmission Gully (November 4).

Their job is not even half done and until then I hope they realise the cost to ratepayers of maintaining Centennial Highway from Paekakariki to Linden.

In particular, I recall a past Porirua City Council chief executive and mayor rushing to proclaim Pukerua Bay would get a Scenic Highway, as a trade-off for a more scenic bypass that no-one even bothered to explore.

Moreover, they got the location of the Ohariu fault wrong; it goes through Transmission Gully!

None of the political advocates have the expertise to know what they have traded off. through the Salvation Army to underprivileged local kids and families.

Our competition at school will run for three weeks and the class with the most presents collected will win a free pizza lunch for the whole class, donated by the Whitby Co-op Kitchen and Bar.

This is our second year running the competition.

Last year we collected 397 presents and we are aiming for more this year.

We would like to challenge other schools to do the same and see if you can beat us. It’s time to get involved. gets huge rates from us all, not take down one section and replace it with with a new one immediately, instead of merely having more meetings?

Maybe it could also think of reducing the capital value of these shops, which is knocking the retailers badly.

Who wants to sit out and have lunch and look around shops while getting wet and battling wind? We get more than our share of that weather.

I for one will head to North City Plaza along with others my age. That will cause more shops to close. If there was as much action as there are meetings, we could have a great CBD.