Kapiti Mayoral hopeful is only rep. at GWRC meeting
by Alan Tristram
Kapiti Mayoral candidate Jackie Elliott spoke to a packed meeting at Greater Wellington Regional Council as they voted to submit their proposal on amalgamation options.
They preferred the two-tier option for the entire region including the Wairarapa.
Ms Elliott, the only speaker from Kapiti, spoke on the importance of maintaining Kapiti’s local identity and the voice of Kapiti ratepayers throughout the amalgamation process. read more…
Caleb Royal becomes first Maori appointee with voting rights on KCDC committee
By Alan Tristram
Caleb Royal has begun work as the first Maori representative appointed — with voting rights — to a committee of the Kāpiti Coast District Council.
The KCDC says: “When Caleb Royal sat at the Council table it was an historic moment in the history of Kāpiti Coast District Council.”
Mr Royal is one of three Māori representatives recently appointed to three of Council’s standing committees. read more…
Kapiti Council apologises to disabled and elderly swimmers
By Alan Tristram
The Kapiti Coast District Council’s CEO has apologised to the disabled and elderly community for the ‘frustration and hurt’ caused by the Council’s handling of the pool ramp issue.
The KCDC originally promised to put in a ramp in the new pool, then changed its mind. But after massive protests it went back to the drawing board to get a last-minute add-on ramp at an extra cost of about $100,000 on the pool cost of $21 million.
The Council’s Chief Executive, Pat Dougherty, has now issued an unprecedented full apology. read more…
Chemo Club Blog Two
By Ros Aitken in London
(Ros continues her series on her experiences in a top London NHS`cancer hospital)
Calloo callay, oh frabjuous day, or the Day St George’s Hospital Cocked it up
Up at 6.15 to catch bus for 9am short chemo – ie about an hour.
Arrive in good time and am ushered into treatment room, but start to sense something is wrong – hear my name anxiously repeated by nurses just out of sight. read more…
Russell Marshall
NZ rugby neglect hits Pacific Island nations
By Russell MarshallAll Black Zac Guilford was in the news again last week. Michael Field in the Sunday Star Times suggested he would be in trouble with the NZ Rugby Union for comments he made about what he regarded as NZRU’s neglect of rugby in the rugby-playing Pacific Islands.
He also suggested that rugby planning is driven too much by money, and that as a consequence there is too much top level rugby being played now. read more…
Hui proves opposition to Expressway is ‘alive and well’
By Alan Tristram
A hui at Whakarongotai marae in Waikanae on the Kapiti expressway has attracted about 100 people — showing that opposition is still alive and well four years after the announcement of the controversial road through the heart of the coastal District.
Green transport spokesperson, Julie Anne Genter (an ex-transport planner), has highlighted the mounting evidence against the expressway including environmental, cultural, social and economic deficiencies.
And Labour’s Transport Spokesperson, Iain Lees-Galloway, has urged people to vote for the parties who had publicly opposed the road since the last election. read more…
The Motorway Minister
‘The Minister of Business and Innovation is an expressway. Smaller roads are too minor for him. We pay for him but we cannot cross him. He is a divider. We pay for him with our homes, trees, family, friends and quiet breathable air while he says he is saving our time for us, making money for us, paving our future for us. He will carry our oil and coal, our milk and beef, our logs, our rare earth minerals. He is a trucking and carbon-making road. He doesn’t know that you bike to school. He hasn’t met your grandmother who lives on the other side. He doesn’t know the final truth about water and trees. He has never seen – even in his mind’s eye – the country that we want to live in. He doesn’t know because he is a highway. He lives on a rare earth but he doesn’t see it and he doesn’t know it. He is in charge and he is charging.’
David Shearer Writes…
The Labour leader, David Shearer, has highlighted an average rates rise in Kapiti of 5.17 per cent among price increases which are stretching family budgets.
In his monthly column for the Kapiti Independent, Mr Shearer says his visits to communities throughout NZ always highlight worries about
the cost of living, the lack of local opportunities,and’ the growing divide between Kiwis who can afford to flick the heater on when the southerly hits and those who can’t.’ read more…
Nelson Mandela: the great man is ailing
Roger Childs writes a special tribute…
I have cherished the idea of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live and achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die – Nelson Mandela at his trial for treason in 1963
Nelson Mandela is the most revered political figure on the planet; and he is probably the only person who can merit the title of ‘global elder statesman.’ read more…
