Councillors, bring your own lunch
Mayor Foster has brought back lunches for councillors paid for by ratepayers. This is not acceptable. They are paid handsomely and should therefore provide their own. If they are too busy to go out and get food each lunchtime, buy it or make it the night before like others do.
Many of the ratepayers who they are sponging off don’t themselves get lunch breaks and many cannot afford a lunch. The practice needs to stop before it fully starts. They are meant to be serving the community, not helping themselves to the kitty.
Carol Cooper-McCord, Lower Hutt
I have no problem with the council arranging for sandwiches to be delivered to councillors but I fail to understand why they cannot pay for them themselves.
It’s not as if they are volunteers; they earn a good salary. It’s unbelievable that these people who have been elected to run Wellington City Council cannot organise their own lunch.
How many ratepayers receive a free lunch from their employers? I certainly never did.
I suppose the only good thing about it is that they wouldn’t dare increase our rates – or would they?
Colin Moore, Ngaio
Chemist options
So Taco Bell is considering opening in New Zealand . . . well, whoopee do!
I am sure most ‘‘older’’ persons would appreciate Chemist Warehouse opening up south of the Bombay Hills instead.
It offers up to 50 per cent cheaper options for customers in Auckland and Australia, where they are in abundance.
Just two simple examples: The Colgate optic white on sale in supermarkets in Wellington region at about $11 can be bought for as little as $5.50 in Chemist Warehouse. Quattro titanium shaving blades are on sale in most supermarkets for over $11 but in Chemist Warehouse for $6 or cheaper.
Steve Anderton, Paraparaumu
Too many talkers
Karl du Fresne made my day! No, Karl made my week! His My nightmare vision of Wellington in 2030 (Nov 14) on Wellington’s procrastination was so well written I told lots of people to read it.
Unfortunately I can’t see my capital city waking up anytime soon because we
have far too many talkers and far too few doers.
Fortunately for Karl he wakes up each day in Masterton, whereas I have to face worsening traffic congestion outside my house and see saddening building dereliction when I wake up in Wellington. Time to relocate over the hill too, I think. Barbara Smyth, Thorndon
Essential it’s not built
The Chamber of Commerce’s John Milford claims Convention centre essential (Nov 14). Surely the contrary is true, and on several counts related to the global climate-warming crisis we face. They are:
■ The proposed site which is on reclaimed land, is so close to the present sea level that its basement would be below spring high-tide level;
■ In a few decades as sea level rises, its ground-floor exhibition space would be inundated at spring high-tide; its construction would cause a dramatic rise in the capital city’s CO2 emissions;
■ Its presence would result in many more long-haul flights to and from Wellington, pouring greenhouse gases into the global atmosphere.
Rather than the proposed convention centre being essential, it is surely essential that it not be built. Would-be conference delegates should have their discussions by video link, thus saving valuable time in their busy lives.
J Chris Horne, Northland
Lazy lingo
A bit deaf I might be, but spoken language these days is just getting lazy. TV
commentaries, announcing, documentary comments, actors and actresses in movies and TV serials, slur words and make speech difficult to understand. Don’t they teach elocution at schools?
I thought it was only me. Apparently not – others have had the same experience, and no-one has talked about it. What with slang creeping in; swearing galore; dialects and lazy speech, it is little wonder that immigrants have difficulty understanding us, let alone learning English as a second language.
Speech is a wonderful thing - it’s a pity it is being abused so much.
I will have to learn sign language! Maureen Lee, Waitarere Beach
Better use of space
Has Mike Williams read the Let’s Get Wellington Moving proposals (Letters, Nov 14)? He seems unaware that the ‘‘light rail’’ proposal is a waterfront quays and Taranaki St rapid transit route, not Lambton Quay.
LGWM concluded that the best way to get Wellington moving is to ‘‘move more people using fewer vehicles’’. They show that by investing in better public transport, walking and cycling/scooting, Wellington can double, double again, and double again the productivity of its existing road space. Wellington doesn’t have a capacity problem; it has a productivity problem.
Williams asks us to believe we can get Wellington moving by making more room for more vehicles, encouraging more people to get around in the least spatially efficient way ever invented. Cars and roads are great if you live in a small town with few people and lots of space. In crowded cities short of space, they create congestion.
This is not a Left versus Right issue. The question is whether it’s better for Wellington to invest in productivity, as LGWM recommends, or capacity, as Williams favours. History shows that in the long run, productivity always wins. Which side of history will Wellington choose?
John Rankin, Wellington
Silly labels
This intergenerational name calling is doing no good, being childish in the extreme.
It only serves to elicit the selective memory of all contenders. Each population/generational cohort has its problems and its good times, to the envy of some and the sympathy of others.
I was born during the years of World War II, a period of considerable austerity, with my parents and their parents having gone through the 1930s Depression. Children born during and after the conflict benefited from the slow improvement of circumstances.
The various generational ‘‘types’’ that have been identified subsequently are largely spurious; silly labels with little or no validity. They are diffuse, broadlybased, overlapping categories which have had and will continue to have, their ups and downs just like any group. It is obvious that the old and young still living both benefit and suffer in concert as fortunes fluctuate. The old often finding it harder to manage than the young, who at least have time on their side.
Perhaps the history curriculum as yet to be taught in New Zealand schools could examine and analyse generational flaws as well as aptitudes, and perhaps bring about a greater understanding, enlightenment and tolerance?
Allen Heath, Woburn
Demetrius Christoforou attacks me for my ‘‘shameful’’ attitude to Chlo¨ e Swarbrick’s views about climate change. (Letters, Nov 15).
I expressed no views about Swarbrick’s views on climate change so his attack falls to the ground. To me the issue is not the occasion nor the interjection.
Swarbrick’s remark of ‘‘OK, Boomer’’ could have been made at many other times on any number of subjects where there are generational differences in view.
For his information I am not, and have never been, a member of any political party so I have no cohorts from National or any other party, as was claimed.
The only point I was making was about the very dismissive language Swarbrick used and what that says about how she views other generations. I stand by those comments.
John Bishop, Karori