Claims just repackaging of council PR
Ryan Gray (Letters, January 12) used a Labour Party slogan and cherrypicked a potential election issue to suggest a bizarre catchphrase and ridiculous policy for Rotorua District Residents and Ratepayers (RDRR). He should launch his own policies, as the RDRR will, once candidates have been endorsed.
He extrapolated a potential election issue as “one of the pillars of RDRR’s 2019 campaign to install a power bloc in Rotorua Lakes Council” that would slow progress. It was mischievous fiction, made no mention of the track record of the current power bloc and understated RDRR’s concerns.
Calling the RDRR a “minority interest group” was accurate in 2016, when we attracted over 42,000 votes, but now may be wishful thinking.
In his opinion “we don’t need fewer projects, but projects done better.” Agreed, the council’s project management has been incompetent, but what has been done about it? Is he okay with the rushed bad-debt spending on legacy and vanity projects, and running down infrastructure and maintenance?
Ryan applauded the CBD cycleway and blamed its rushed implementation when it should have gone along the lakefront. He blamed the previous Government for the Special Housing Area legislation that made consultation optional and did not fix prices when it was wrong for the council to permit house building on a flood plain.
In my view, instead of repackaging the council’s PR, Ryan should consider fresh ideas from RDRR’s Facebook.
(Abridged)
Rotorua
I read Bryan Gould’s article (Opinion, January 13) about his dog Lachie with interest as I too have an old dog, Sarge.
It all makes sense to me, you get so much from having a dog.
Dog lovers know what I’m talking about.
I’m glad to read Bryan is going to have Lachie put down when she loses her quality of life.
Unlike humans who, in my view, torture their elderly until the bitter inevitable end.
Yet we are meant to be the superior species.
Springfield
I resisted joining in when Jim Adams first bemoaned the lack of comedians (Letters, January 8) (subjective but wrong, I would suggest).
But your correspondents Alf Hoyle and Ross Allen (Letters, January 14) have now forced my hand.
In response to Allen’s assertion that we have “become too PC” I would suggest that being non-PC neither assists nor guarantees successful comedy. As for Alf Hoyle’s twin offerings of “Brits spend a large percentage of their time indoors watching TV” and “They are programmed to clap and get excited”: These are simply insulting.
I offer in closing the thought that we have two comedians right there.
Glenholme
A letter to the editor headlined “Development opponents want to scare” published in yesterday’s paper was erroneously attributed to John Smales of Fairy Springs. It was, in fact, submitted by John Pakes of Ngongotaha.