Avain search for outrage
Try as Imay, and I’ve tried for whole seconds, I can’t get outraged at news that Wellington Mayor Andy Foster turned up at an occupation by Ma¯ori over the Shelly Bay fiasco, and even helped put up a tent.
Jolly nice of him about the tent, Iwould have thought. And very hospitable on the part of our civic leader.
Like many (well, enough for a slender majority) Wellingtonians I voted for Foster because his predecessor failed to impress, and because Foster opposed the development of Shelly Bay by a developer who’d get amagnificent site to cover with the usual ugly buildings, partly at my expense and for his profit.
As a ratepayer I’ll have to help him with infrastructure costs if it goes ahead, and they’ll end up being much more expensive than estimates because it always turns out that way. Now – to add to the annoyance – a 23 per cent rates rise is being mooted for next year.
Why this project has to be rushed through while litigation awaits is a further mystery. Something reeks about the process by which Ma¯ori agreed to sell, by the look of it.
A court may decide otherwise but the deal will always look shifty, so I agree with the occupiers. I may take them sandwiches.
Were we pretending that Foster doesn’t still oppose the development? What would have given us that idea? Of course, he opposes it. He always has.
He may end up being a lame duck mayor with a fractious councilwho voted against him, but we’re used to that in this city, where councillors behave petulantly and fail to grasp that politics is supposed to be about compromise, not ego trips.
It’s not about personal beliefs when you represent the public, half of whom don’t even like you or what you stand for. It’s about the common good, and hopefully common sense.
Idon’t care if Foster had Sir Peter Jackson’s backing over Shelly Bay, either. At least itwas out in the open. It was under the former mayor that Wellington lost the museum of the cinema that Jackson offered to install in the costly conference centre – a council plan – nobodywants.
Plans for that, I hope, are sitting under a pile of old newspapers and lunch wrappers at the council’s offices, ready to slide into awastepaper basket.
There has to be a better way to run cities than the current haphazard arrangement, and there should be some accountability. I’m stillmystified at how we apparently voted for bicycle lanes to replace car parks on city streets, for apartment buildings to no longer have to provide parking spaces, and for the centre of the city from the Cenotaph to Courtenay Place to be free of everything but buses, even in the side streets. Whose fantasyland are we getting and how did it happen?
Meanwhile, Civic Square remains a dead zone, even if the Neil Dawson sculpture is hanging there again.
Our sewers are disgusting and need replacing, and our water pipes leak. These aren’t sexy needs, I get that, but they’re way more important than intriguing social experiments that might be very nice one day. Without such basic infrastructure even the wildest fancies for an ideal world are a waste of time, money and space. I’d like to hear about plans to improve the boring things.
As for the mayor, he made a bland statement about being at the Shelly Bay occupation/protest because it was a ‘‘community gathering’’.
That insulted everyone’s intelligence. He was there because he opposes the development.
Man up, man. It’s why you got the job.