COUNCIL TAKING BULL BY HORNS
I write in response your front page article of the front page of (April 6th’s) paper.
I was in attendance of the same meeting you based your report and find it disturbing you have made a point of attributing a quote to SWDC CEO when he was in fact quoting Mr Shamubeel Eaqub an economist who made that comment in 2014.
Mr Eaqub did not specifically class Tokoroa as a Zombie town but was generalising about rural town NZ and mentioned Northland, Gisborne and other areas.
For you to attribute this quote as directly a statement of Mr Hobbs’ and to say he made a specific threat that Tokoroa would definitely become a ‘‘zombie’’ town is not only wrong but dangerous.
To those with a business, commercial building or even a house on the market would have cringed to see such a story plastered on national news.
To a dynamic engineering company (of which there are many in town) trying to entice a skilled employee to town would have had a heart sinking dread spread through their gut.
Mr Hobbs did state stats around the ‘‘experts’’ reasoning around a playground but his general drift did not indicate a playground would fix the towns woes.
I took from that meeting is SWDC are taking the bull by the horns and not only trying to entice business to town from the passing State Highway as well as trying to improve the maligned image Tokoroa has from those not aware of what a great place it is.
He also implored business to support the initiative because the SWDC has struggled to get a working relationship with Tokoroa businesses for a long time and he had high hopes the new Business Association will go some way to resolving this issue.
The Business Association spokesperson Mr D. Jakeman enforced this sentiment in closing the meeting encouraging businesses to take ownership of their own destiny and not relying