Why is Dunedin council buying cohousing unit? Ka pai and carpe diem — embrace both languages
YOU have been reporting the financial crisis our Dunedin City Council is facing, and the need to finance ongoing infrastructure maintenance, pensioner housing, cycle lanes, LED lights, carbon footprints and so on as set out in our ratepayerconsulted planning documents.
Lots of agonising, reports and discussion at the council table on how much to borrow.
There have been no reports of the staff and council continuing a campaign to use our ratepayer funds and loans to operate in the property market, in direct competition with ratepayers whose livelihood depends on their skills in a tightmargined business.
Could you ask the Mayor to explain how this is a mandated activity for our council, and what real estate skills they bring to this endeavour.
I am thinking about the purchase of Sammy’s with little obvious return on our funds so far.
Your story on the Toiora High Street Cohousing development (ODT, 12.11.20), which is reaching a great finish after six years, explains this great achievement and a new concept of community housing.
We need more houses for individual ratepayers to own, but the Dunedin City Council is planning to buy one of these units. Why?
The council must say why rates are to be used to compete with ratepayers again.
Peter Ashcroft
Mosgiel
[A Dunedin City Council spokesperson replies:
‘‘Rates are used for a wide variety of purposes. The council resolved to buy a unit in the High St Cohousing development in order to enable the development to proceed. As part of that resolution, the council further agreed to sell the unit at the earliest possible time. That is what the council intends to do.’’]
Glamis Hospital
IN response to a letter from J. Park (Letters, 14.11.20), asking that the council do something about the sorry state of the former Glamis Hospital in Montpellier St, a Dunedin City Council official stated that the Building Act did not allow it to take any action with the overseas absentee owner.
The council is, however, responsible for part of the current unsightly mess because the land between the vandalised building and the street frontage is almost entirely owned by the council.
Over the past several years, this area has been allowed to lapse into a jungle of weeds, debris and rubbish. Neither a letter to the council nor a ‘‘fixogram’’ have prompted any remedial action.
Mervyn Smith Dunedin Central
Lee Vandervis
DCC bullying? Ask Lee Vandervis, who has had his behaviour questioned on occasions, resulting in a file being kept regarding this.
Also, ask staff who have been subjected to workplace bullying and out of a job — not good enough.
I agree with Pat Barnes (Letters, 17.11.20) and others who have commented recently. Any council that condones this should have a long, hard look at its own behaviour.
Marie Sutherland
Normanby ...................................
BIBLE READING: My friends, be patient until the Lord returns. — James 5.7.
DAVID George (Letters, 19.11.20) makes the frankly ludicrous claim that ‘‘the Maori language has overtaken the use of Latin as the language of the elite’’.
There are global communities working in science, medicine, law, music and academia that beg to differ!
Evidence is required, Mr George. Latin demands habeus corpus.
The principle failing in his argument is that it is a quid pro quo situation, that learning and loving one language must exclude the other.
Knowing both some Latin and some te reo gives us all a richer lingua franca.
If someone has a passion for either then carpe diem, embrace it!
Learning te reo has never been more accessible. To say either language is superior to the other is cultural snobbery of the worst kind.
Both add richness to our language in their own way and both should have a place in our future.
Duane Donovan
Bradford
Library prayer space
IT is my understanding that the majority of New Zealanders would consider New Zealand to be a secular society — that is, no state religion, and that matters of religion and belief are a private matter and not in the public sphere.
I am disappointed that Dunedin City Council library services manager Bernie Hawke has chosen to set that fundamental view aside and apply public money to what is clearly a personal matter of choice (ODT, 19.11.20).
In pursuing his and other council staff’s desire to be inclusive and to respect different cultural practices and beliefs, he has in fact trodden on the practices and beliefs of the majority in favour of the minority, a theme all too common in our society today.
He has also chosen not to consult city councillors or indeed those that are expected to fund such wasteful projects, but does see a need to consult with Maori. Perhaps Mr Hawke and the council as a whole should stick to their service delivery function and refrain from public policy making and social engineering.
R. Clark
Wakari