OVER TO YOU

Cynicism may be justified

Brian Vickery has me bang to rights, guilty as charged of gross cynicism. Let’s start with the obvious, foisting the Len Lye centre on us, great building, but even ardent fans express disappointment on the contents as well as the cost and budget overruns for a private minority interest group; why is it even council owned?

The airport; three years ago a $9 million upgrade was deemed fit for purpose and the vast majority of those responding to an unbiased survey agreed, three years later we are spending nearly $30m for what is effectively a bus stop.

One councillor dismissed some very convincing arguments against the more expensive option by stating that we should be cognisant of the qualifications of the bureaucrats who drew up the revised plan; Yes Minister indeed.

NPDC spends about 35 per cent more than the average local authority on wages as a percentage of rates and despite council telling us that they were reviewing staff and costs, the number of full time equivalent staff , including ‘managers’ earning over $100,000 per annum, has increased.

Finally cynical because we have lost people with the intellect of Len Houwers and the community dedication of Grant Coward, next we lose Horse McLeod a genuine hard working councillor. Just the tip of the cynical iceberg Brian.

Even so I am optimistic, optimistic that the new STV voting system will find people who ask questions and understand the meaning of the Local Government Act, instead of rubber stamping everything put in front of them. Peter Barker

Bell Block

Fishing for change

On March 14 it was reported in your paper that the Taranaki Regional Council (TRC) has given my company a poor environmental record for our renewable power station at Normanby, alongside an arsenic leaching sawmill.

This is ridiculous behaviour from the TRC, an organisation that in my experience resembles a retired man’s fishing club. As I’ve pointed out to them, our project has generated clean, green renewable electricity for over 200 houses and has displaced 65 tonnes of carbon dioxide since the operation started. How is that a poor environmental outcome?

Their measures of environmental performance are subjective and are behind the times. Evidence of catastrophic climate change is all around us every day with record temperatures and the new cyclone season in New Zealand yet our environmental regulators in Taranaki, perhaps drunk on the fruits of fossil fuel, like to pretend this isn’t happening.

It is, it’s here, it’s 2018, renewable energy is our only future, there is no future in fossil fuels and I urge the TRC to start behaving like a forward thinking environmental regulator rather than a fishing club.

Tim Johnson

Ha¯ wera

Another alternative

Councillor Chong may think outside the box, and selling the art is an idea a lot of people would agree with. However, apart from trust deeds, etc. not allowing it he brings a view to the debate about alternative council funding.

Problem with selling an art piece or even reserve land, in fact, is you can only sell it once, and once it’s gone, it’s gone. The mayor wants to have a grown up debate around how to fund major projects and look at alternatives to debt funding to raising rates and so we should. And if New Plymouth District Council is fixed on having a development company then why don’t we look at assets we have and what can be developed to increase a return to NPDC (and ultimately the whole community).

I have a couple of ideas but will be hard to squeeze into 250 words.

But for instance we have prime sea front land on Molesworth St, currently a car park returning I would say less than $100k a year. It’s a million dollar piece of land used for parking cars. Why not go into partnership with a developer, build a building where the ground floor is a cafe opening on to our walkway and build a new waterfront motel, or whatever the market needs. Engage local company like Augusta to find investors or use PIF funds to build it and offer it out as a commercial lease for a nice return.

The benefit is nothing is sold and a bigger return and it will return for generations. Public private partnerships like this can work (Abridged)

Shaun Biesiek

New Plymouth district councillor