Civic matters
For the last few years we have been deprived from using our iconic museum in case patrons were killed in an earthquake.
Now I read we are sending in bulldozers at great expense to demolish the museum.
If we are going to have an earthquake, would it not make sense to simply wait for the museum to be demolished at no cost?
After all, according to those in control the earthquake and danger risk are imminent.
Incidentally, can anyone tell me if anyone has been killed in an earthquake in the last 200 years in Southland?
And now, apparently after building a new shopping mall in the CBD, we have not thought that this might cause client parking access and loading problems for businesses.
And what about the legal expenditure to defend what was obviously the issue of the council’s illegal parking fees?
Would it have not been more sensible for the bureaucrats employed by the ICC to admit that they had made an error and arrange a refund of the fees not only to those who challenged the legality of the fees but also to those who made the mistake of paying them?
Perhaps it is time to be like Central Government and begin assessing the number of bureaucratic employees local bodies employ and what their value is to ratepayers.
Recently I read that a group of people representing the arts appeared before an ICC meeting seeking funding.
If the arts in general cannot support themselves then they are in serious trouble. Until the ICC can provide all the basic services the citizens of Invercargill require and should be demanding to be supplied from their rates then I would certainly oppose the provision of ratepayers funds being used to prop up the arts.
Allan Baxter, Invercargill Abridged - Editor