Thanks to Manawatu Peoples Radio and with the very professional chairperson abilities of Fraser Gregg the MPR station Manager and assisted by the Programme Manager Hugh Dingwall. I attended the Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday meetings but missed the Monday meeting:
our Councillors and two candidates came together for a public chat [Tuesday]...around twenty public attended. All of the Councillors public meetings will be available from midweek next week just go to MPR and you can listen to what the Councillors and candidates had to say...You will not hear the Mayor because didn't even bother to turn up to even one meeting...so much for his community connections...he is tighter to Toyota than he is to PN.
“One of the subjects was By-Laws and what is entailed in enforcing them. Naturally we here in PN have had many many discussions around this touchy subject... One past mayor I remember considered bringing the local rugby team members to move those begging to move along out of the shopping area...but that died an early death [thank God]
Now depending how you look at it, beggers are seeking extra income by asking the public for money...if one is in that position where one has very little choice but to beg...they could of course steal... but in my view those who steal to feed themselfves or their family are simply applying a survival behaviour rather than a criminal one...people who steal to live are simply trying to surviving.
Now for years and years we jailed those who robbed or stole to survive, especial if they were Maori and poor, because our police and general public just love to blame and punish [we inherited this shocking attitude from our British heritage: the individuals concerned are condemned not only for begging but also for being poor...or being Maori and now days if they are begging or even questioning the behaviour of the so-called political elite or the police / so-called Justice system they are blamed rather than us looking together at the failing system and putting in right...
I posed the thought that those candidates who are standing now days, for Mayor or Councillor positions, are in their own way ‘Begging for votes. So the question can rightly be asked would they stand if they were not being paid or rewarded?
So you could say that maybe they are standing to boost their incomes, rather than for the community in which they live. I don’t in any way condemn anyone standing, nor will I assume what each candidates individual motivation is:
But if it was agreed that Councillors would no longer be rewarded how many of our present councillors would remain in the race, approaching this from the financial reward angle makes for some interesting possibilities maybe the motivation for standing needs to be expressed by the candidates.
I recall that we [Cris Teo-Sherrell and myself] [in 2007 or 2008] moved a motion to recommend that salaries be paid on a performance basis, this was because many Councillors appeared to skip heaps of meetings. We were greatly defeated when the vote was taken.And some of that Councillors who voted against are still in council right to this day.
So I would agree that it is vital that we find out why individuals are begging on the streets of our city...making begging a crime is simply totally stupid in my humble opinion.
And takes us right back to the 1840s when the poor working classes of the UK were shipped off shore to places like Australia, Canada and New Zealand to keep the streets of London clear of beggers and unemployed masses. We should never forget that at that time the Brits supported slavery and were busy shipping indigenous people around the world to be sold as slaves.
As one of the candidates [David Lane} pointed out begging should never be considered a crime...and being an ex policeman he must surely see the obvious hypocritical behaviour of the police force these days as are never found guilty of breaking the laws rhey are meant to enforce...the latest act of the police of finding themselves not guilty of breaking the law was when they broke into Nicky Hager's home. And it was after the High Court had ruled that the police broke the Law. But: [But this report from the Daily Blog says it all]
“Surprise, surprise – the police cleared themselves over their illegal raid on Investigative Journalist, Nicky Hager…Police did not intentionally deceive judge in Dirty Politics raid – IPCA
An unlawful police search of journalist Nicky Hager’s home came from officers neglecting their duties rather than intentional misconduct, the police watchdog says.
Officers did not deliberately deceive a judge when they failed to mention that Hager was a journalist while applying for the search warrant, the Independent Police Conduct Authority said in a ruling released this morning.
Instead, the IPCA found the unlawful search of his Wellington home in 2014 was the “result of unwitting neglect of duty” and “did not amount to misconduct by any individual officer”.
Police searched Hager’s home on October 2, 2014, for 10 hours. They were seeking evidence about a hacker who provided information to Hager for his book Dirty Politics, which was published on August 13, 2014. They were acting on a complaint from blogger Cameron Slater, who said his emails had been hacked.
Note the language here, there wasn’t any misconduct in not telling the Judge who signed off on an illegal search warrant against Hager that he was a journalist, oh no, it was a “unwitting neglect of duty”!!!!!
What a load of bullshit! They knew full well that the idiot Judge wouldn’t have signed off on a warrant if they knew Hager was a journalist with the protections that has, they specifically left it off and they have gotten away with it.
These lying ex-policemen will do anything, say anything and plead ignorance at anything to hide their abuse of power, and when you try to hold them to account, they attempt to rig the Court process so it can all be heard behind closed doors.
The IPCA are former cops investigating cops and they are as trustworthy as a fox in a hen house.
If only the media spent as much time on the cops clearing themselves of illegally raiding an Investigative Journalist doing real journalism as they are on Celebrity Treasure Island and a stupid Australian talkback host saying mean things to the Prime Minister
What a sickening, duplicitous outcome.
There is no justice on these shallow Islands. TDB ends here:
Wednesday 21st August Councillor / Candidate meeting, was held at 11am. 4 sitting Councillors attended along with four Councillor candidates and 2 Mayoral candidates fronted up. And the subject was housing:
Judging by the general comments it was obvious that the Councillors in the end agreed that the subject of housing was important and urgent, and while sitting Councillor Vaughan Dennison could not resist trying to lay blame on the present government [at least in part] for the housing crisis, this was to be expected after he has always been a big time Nat supporter. Regardless the others up front felt that the blame lay elsewhere.
It was amazing that I received an email from a Wheelers Corner reader on the subject of house building from days long ago: And I will share it with you for it proves that basic housing can be constructed at an affordable price...what is needed is the desire and ability to create the climate for action. Here is the email:
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| Ex Fletcher's builder Peter Grove. |
I notice TDB is making a lot of noise over the current housing crisis. Chris Fafoi looks to be in the sights of a number of guns.I had a long association with State Housing from 1949 to around 1955. I Was employed by Fletcher Residential Construction over that period, The section in which I worked was that which produced the Frames and roofs of houses to be built as a result of contracts let by the department responsible for the creation of state houses
When a new contract was let it would be accompanied by a huge sheaf of plans for all the houses in the contract. It was our job to sort out all the timber required, which in my earlier years with the company, saw me unloading timber from railway wagons on a siding next to the Framing Mill, stacking it and eventually turning it into 4×2's for the framing gangs.
The boss at the time was the guy who set out all the frames for the houses to be built.
They were set out in the order of the sheaf of plans and eventually sent to the framing benches. My job beside ripping to size the 45x2 timber included putting it through another machine which cut the timber into stud lengths which was stacked and trucked away to the framing gangs.
They were heads down all day knocking together the frames. As each frame was completed it was craned away onto the growing pile of frames to be eventually trucked away to the construction site where another team had been employed setting out the foundations, boxing and pouring concrete, setting out and putting in place the piles and bearers for the eventual floor joists, in readiness for the erection of the frames.
The boss beside setting out the frames, would set out the rafters on a single length of timber on which the common rafter came first and all the subordinate rafters from the hip rafters to the walls were also set out. When this was done it was sent to the guy with a cross-cut saw who would set the saw to the appropriate angles and bevels as required to produce the finished rafters, which in turn would be delivered along with the hip and valley rafters to the site for later assembly.
Fletcher's, in those early days claimed they could produce house frames
cheaper than any one could buy the timber for!'s It's my bet those plans will have been archived somewhere and could have been reused as the basis of further new state Houses. They were simple, plain, buildings which housed many thousands of people. Kiwi Build appears to have been a request to builders to build houses, to no particular specification, who chose to produce various master pieces, costing the earth, as we are seeing.
Some where in the report was a comment about renting to own. That seems to me to be ideal and had it been in place during the 1930's and 40's all state house tenants would have become the eventual owners of the properties they were living in.
The drawback with many of those earlier homes was that they were built from ordinary building Rimu which with the passage of time became a Borer's breakfast. Any later alterations would see studs once wall-boards had been removed, when struck with a hammer would disintegrate in a cloud of borer dust! The advent of treated Radiata Pine has revolutionised house building and rot and borer are now things of the distant past for house-building. Apart for a brief flirtation with untreated Radiata Pine which introduced new sets of problems, brought about by wet behind the ears politician, who had absolutely no idea of what the eventual outcomes would reveal!
Those early houses were all built to a standard set of specifications and produced many thousands of good sturdy homes which served their eventual occupants well. Their major drawback in these present times was that ceiling , underfloor and in wall insulation were unheard of in those far off days and by today's standards they are quite inferior. I notice in the Hutt Valley large swathes of these older houses have been demolished and after quite a lengthy time plans are afoot to utilise the empty land for the production of new homes. It is to be hoped prices are easonable. A radio announcement earlier today was offering newly built homes for $995,000. We must be living in some sort of Dreamer's holiday!
Thanks for that Peter Grove, we old timers can offer a way forward that has been proven successful in the past...when will we ever learn.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/397156/phil-twyford-poor-quality-planning-is-stopping-our-cities-from-growing
Click on the above reference to see what the Government is doing to kick start local gocernment into the 21st century in regard to building in their communities.
I attended a couple more so-called public [Thursday and Friday] meetings organised by the Community Services Council [no relation to the PNCC].
2.
The PNCC decided this election not to support public meetings so the candidates could meet with the public. This is a massive step backward but not unexpected when one considers the absolute negative response by locals to the free gift from rate-payers to Toyota Motor Company [the 3rd largest car maker in the world] of $400.000 dollars...during the discussion on Thursday at 5pm, not one sitting Councillor stood up and said that they supported what the council did. But they spent a lot of time attempting to justify their so-called support for the various gatherings held annually in PN and organised by other community groups.
The usual long term councillors did their normal thing and stated simply what [I believe] they thought the public would want to hear. The master-mind behind the Toyota gift stuff up was the Mayor Grant Smith who failed to appear at any of the CSC run meetings,
I wonder why? This is what the MS had to say about the gift to Toyota...it makes for shocking reading. I would suggest that it just might make voting for Grant Smith for Mayor a very dangerous and risky thing to do! Especially if you care about community relationships.
"Yet, it only came to light this week thanks to an Official Information Act request from the NZ Taxpayers' Union.
This is clearly not acceptable.
Given the effusive praise of Toyota from the council official, and what they say is true, surely the council would want to shout from the rooftops about its contribution?
At the very least, details about the grant should have been made public at the time and, ideally, discussed in a public forum so ratepayers can form their own views on its merits.
Toyota didn't want to talk about the issue, referring us to the council for comment. As a private company, that's its right.
But the council is a public body and should be transparent in its dealings, especially when a significant amount of ratepayer money goes to a business that made a $21.9 million profit in the past financial year.
We need to know if Toyota asked for the money, what it was for specifically and who was involved in the decision-making.
We've asked the council this week why nothing was made public at the time – and by this we don't mean as some accounting footnote – and what information about the grant is in the public domain now.
Despite repeated attempts, the council hasn't told us.
At first, it didn't answer our question about where ratepayers can find out about the grant. It's also told us mayor Grant Smith is away this week so nobody can give an answer.
We look forward to hearing what Smith has to say, but the information vacuum suggests there is nothing easily accessible in any public document about the payment. And we were asking a simple question, not for comment.
It's tempting to conclude the council was happy with leaving the public in the dark.
Its spokesman praised Toyota's "ongoing commitment" to Palmerston North. We're sure the council is equally as committed to ratepayers, but it's a shame it neglected to be transparent. Jimmy Ellingham is a Stuff news director in Manawatū.
Stuff
https://www.stuff.co.nz/manawatu-standard/opinion/109856811/no-excuse-for-city-councils-secret-grant-to-toyota-nz
Notice all the old grey haired gentlemen present at the give-away for $400.000 of rate payers hard earned money.
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