Let’s not tarnish Shadbolt’s legacy
I have a number of community leadership roles in Invercargill and have worked with most of the current city councillors in some capacity. I believe all our councillors operate with honest intent and genuinely want what is best for the city.
It is clear from my own observations and that of the Thomson report, that the performance of the Invercargill City Council is largely being hampered by a lack of leadership.
Mayor Sir Tim Shadbolt’s main strength previously was promoting Invercargill through his considerable public speaking skills and national profile.
I have been concerned that his usual quick wit and broad smile has not been evident in recent public presentations and his focus has been on selfpreservation rather than the city’s interests.
He used to speak confidently without notes, we now see him struggling with written scripts as his memory and oratory skills diminish.
Key elements of leadership are understanding the role, having the respect of those you lead and having the skills to build consensus on important issues. It is clear that Sir Tim struggles to do any of these.
He has also resorted to unnecessary personal attacks on past deputy mayors Toni Biddle and Becs Amundsen, who actually gave him considerable support.
A large amount of rate-payers’ money will be needed to provide the support necessary to fill the leadership void because of Sir Tim’s refusal to step aside. This money would have been better spent on many of the projects and services that our community needs.
The longer Tim hangs on, the less likely many of us will remember his earlier capability and I fear his amazing legacy of service will be forever tarnished.
Dave Kennedy
Invercargill
Memory and bullying
I find it interesting that Richard Thomson, appointed as an independent evaluator of the ICC’s woes, has referred to Mayor Tim suffering from memory loss.
Isn’t this the same Richard Thomson that was sacked as chairman of the Otago District Health Board due to his failure to identify a $16.9 million theft by one of his senior staff members?
It’s obvious to most people that the council issues go well beyond Tim’s failing memory, yet all the media focus goes on him.
I wonder if former Mayor Eve Poole suffered similar bullying before dying of ill health while in office in 1992.
Bruce Forrester
Invercargill
In 2009 the then Health Minister Tony Ryall did remove Thomson as Otago DHB chairman, following the conviction of the board’s chief information officer Michael Swann and his business associate Kerry Hartford of defrauding the board during a six-year period. Some board members backed Thomson and Labour MP Pete Hodgson accused Ryall of political interference: ‘‘Sacking the guy who helped catch the crook is nonsensical.’’
Thomson remained an elected member on the Otago board, and was then elected
to the combined Southern DHB. When the board was dismissed in 2015 and Kathy Grant was appointed commissioner, she selected him as a deputy commissioner – Editor
Charter schools important
More than half of college (university equivalent) pupils in California require remedial language and numeracy instruction. For many of the lower socioeconomic orders, forced by strict zoning laws to attend their local school, they come out functionally illiterate and innumerate.
Deprived of any opportunity to get on the job training by minimum wage laws their future is welfare dependency, hopelessness, drug taking, crime, mental decay and homelessness.
To arrest this situation activists fight for the establishment of charter schools to give parents school choice.
Despite the success of these institutions which receive only half the pupil funding as state schools, these schools are bitterly opposed by the education unions who are the most powerful of all political lobbies in America and for the most part control the Democratic Party at local, state and federal level.
Fundamentally the state education system is a feather-bedded adult work scheme that because of failure to do what it is supposed to support a whole industry of advisors to treat the problem and who have every incentive not to cure it.
Joe Biden has undertaken to stop any federal funding to charter schools continuing the virulent opposition that Obama had as president.
Like Obama, Biden is an elitist committed to maintaining the privilege of the select few who run America and profit from that position.
The idea that any of the lower orders through education may rise to challenge them is unthinkable. Trump created that possibility hence the hate filled campaign to rid him. With everything going back to normal the elite can sleep soundly in their gated estates, send their kids to private schools and indulge in a bit of virtue signally safe in the knowledge how easy it is to gull the general population.
To all this Jacinda Ardern gives her enthusiastic support seconded by the news media.