Back-to-front flags annoy
A dozen flags promoting the Southland Festival of the Arts are the wrong way around on Invercargill’s main street, raising the ire of a city councillor and a counter-attack from a Venture Southland staff member.
Venture Southland had 42 flags put up in Dee, Don and Esk streets a fortnight ago to promote the festival.
However, a dozen of the flags read back to front when driving south on Dee St because the tiedowns appear to be on the wrong bottom corner of the flags.
Invercargill city councillor Peter Kett said he spoke to Venture Southland chief executive Paul Casson on Tuesday and told him the flags were the wrong way around.
Kett expected the flags to be corrected within 24 hours but by yesterday nothing had been done.
Kett said he was annoyed; he accepted a mistake had been made but he believed it should have been rectified quickly. ‘‘The city council puts [$1.67 million] into Venture each year and it’s not a good look . . . about 8000 vehicles travel south on North Rd/Dee St daily. It’s important to get it right,’’ he said.
Arts Festival director Angela Newell, who is also a Venture staff member, said Casson had not contacted her about the issue but she was aware a dozen of the flags read the wrong way when travelling south on Dee St. ‘‘He [Casson] has probably been busy doing important things rather than worrying if flags are around one way correctly,’’ Newell said.
She took responsibility for the mistake and, because of the nature of the flag designs, doubted it could be fixed. ‘‘I clearly ordered the wrong flags . . . if that’s the kind of battle he [Kett] wants to be making in the media . . .’’
Newell liked the way the public could see all of the flags on Dee St, ‘‘but they obviously offend Cr Kett’’, she said.
The arts festival was a success and the flag issue was not detracting from it, she said.
‘‘We try our very best to make the event as successful as we can. If we get something wrong every now and again, we are only human.’’