puff 277 Wheeler's Corner

Wheeler’s CornerÓ

Connecting Citizens Who Care




Contact Peter at wheeler@inspire.net.nz

04 1st February 2007

This Week: 1. Rewriting history. 2. Doubling up at the top. 3. Dittmer Drive the facts. 4. Café Chat finds CEO.

Editorial

Question: When is a Councillor comment not a Councillor’s comment?

Answer: When the CEO insists upon rephrasing it.

In the Horowhenua, Cr. Anne Hunt was rostered to write the fortnightly councillor notice in the council's official notice board, published in the local newspaper. Both the Mayor and the CEO gave her an ultimatum: accept the changes or the comment will be pulled. According to the CEO: "This is a council publication, so councillor comments need to be from an organization's perspective, not the first person." True to form, Cr. Hunt refused to capitulate. Here in Palmerston North just a few short miles up the road from Levin the problem of gagging Councillors is much the same. Of course gagging is not official public policy but in the main and judging by the behaviour of some Councillors the behaviour is alive and well. A staff member writes the monthly good news document official published by council in the main, it is thought that the same staff member assists some Councillors with their press releases. When a CEO or anyone for that matter demands changes or additions then that document becomes a public relations spin document. We appear more robust here in Palmerston North in so much as the ‘letters’ to the editor sections of our papers are often filled with claims and counter claims by Councillors. While some Councillors attempt to rewrite history [I.e. The Square debate] the citizen’s are wise enough to recognise this fact and respond accordingly.

1. Dear Sir

In his letter of, January 24, the learned Dr, Cr. Gordon Cruden amply illustrates, in my view, the foundations of the dysfunctional aspects of the current council. Cr. Cruden and a majority of councilors (not all to the same extent) have acted with scant respect for Both Mayor Heather Tanguay and the other councilors nor their views from the commencement of this term of council. With respect to The Square: (which I define as being identified by the outer perimeter of the outer footpath). Cr. Cruden, with his usual eloquent obfuscation, ignores a central point of Cr. Peter Claridge, Pat Kelly and others' opposition to the rape of The Square. That being that a Square makeover has never been the subject of "meaningful consultation" by any recent council. In mid 1999 two surveys were carried out to ascertain public views. 53 percent of respondents in the uncontrolled survey undertaken by council staff opposed the approach subsequently taken and in the controlled random survey undertaken by Massey's Marketing Department an overwhelming 72 percent opposed this approach.

Yours sincerely John Bent.

2. The salary paid to the top position in the Palmerston City Council had reached Two hundred and ninety five thousand dollars when the present CEO applied for other positions. Among those was a position with the Tasman District Council, it appears that he was successful with that application because he then resigned. The official reasons given for his departure was the huge hours he was asked to work and the lack of support he received from some councillors. Mr. Paul Wylie, the city employee involved claimed that running a city with a billion dollars worth of assets is no easy task. That may be true or it may be false, surely it depends on the person involved and there abilities. But it is most certainly false to claim that the CEO runs the city. At least in theory the citizens run the city via the councillors they elect. Even the billion-dollar city claim represents more public relation spin. But this representation is vital from the top position because it is part of the creation of the salary structure for those at the top. In real terms council could operate just as effectively by operating with a joint leadership and not bothering with a CEO which would immediately save the city around three hundred thousand dollars per year. This is obvious when you consider that that is the model being used right now with two CEO’s in place. It is ironic that the very person who took strike action against a ward committee [Awapuni] is the acting CEO, while the present CEO who supported and condoned that action, continues to be paid for the position. It would appear that a majority of councillors accept this strange situation.

I received this by email in many respects it proves the views expressed above. When you couple this behaviour with the Elmira Ave court case which the council lost and is appealing right now it is easy to see why so much anger exists within some communities.

3. A survey questionnaire was put in the mailbox of residents of Dittmer Drive [to be returned to PNCC by 9 February]. The PNCC Road Planning division seem to have a problem with numbers, first of all they couldn't work out 75% of 64, and now they can't work out how to number questions. There are two questions numbered 1. It would seem that they also can’t work out why they construction of traffic calming in Dittmer Drive actually took place. Because the have forgotten their letter to residents in May 2004 asking them if they wanted calming devices. I thought the PNCC monitored the traffic in Dittmer Drive to see if there was an actual problem with vehicle speed and heavy traffic and not simply a whim of residents.

In a survey carried out by myself for Cr. Pat Kelly, only 9 residents out of 54 who replied (out of 64 addresses according to PNCC) ticked the preferred option, which was: ‘do you want the chicanes to stay in Dittmer Drive?

If Councillor Gordon Cruden who is hot on people [The Mayor and other Councillors] following PNCC policy, you would think he would be asking David Lane and his boss Ray Swadel to resign. Why! For not following PNCC policy on traffic calming devices, where 75% of residents are required to be in favour of them before they can be constructed. Thanks for that but the behaviour of Councillors like the one you’ve named are based on politics rather than integrity. We should not be surprised in the least.

4. Café news: Over heard by WC reporter:

‘So when does he leave?

‘April or March I’m told’

‘I haven’t seen him since Christmas, have you?

‘No, but a little bird told me that he is working out of the old Railway Station’

‘The Railway Station, you must be joking, that place is a mess and besides that doesn’t ‘Toll Holdings own the station? ‘Come to think of it isn’t Jono Naylor planing to de-weed the place and slap a bit of paint around as part of his mayoral campaign’.

‘Possibly, but the real reason could be that he wants to be near you-know-who’.

‘I guess we will never know after all our job is just to issue parking tickets, but the Railway Station, wait till I tell that woman from the community group who were thinking of using the Railway Station for some community groups activities… Just imagine you-know-who working alongside, ‘Mums for a better City’ the mind boggles at the thought’.

‘Just before we duck out into the wind and give some motorists a fright, it's really good that we don’t have to issue railway tickets’.

‘Don’t speak too soon, I’ve heard that we may have to go to the Airport to ticket Taxi drivers shortly’.

‘Oh, God what next!

They left the café and our reporter realised that her coffee was cold. So she left the café and headed up to the railway station to check out the weeds.

5. Access Radio said farewell to Station Manager Terry Casserly last Friday. Over fifty people turned up to say goodbye and wish him well. The board Chair gave a thank you speech on behalf of the board and the broadcasters. I wish to thank Terry for all the work he did at keeping Wheeler’s Corner on air when it came under huge pressure from the CEO of the city council. Terry understood the rules and regulations regarding broadcasting and was very protective of broadcaster’s rights. He had other valuable skills as well. He produced two CD’s of short stories of mine and also read some of them. He is a highly talented reader and he pulled together readings by Janice Feyen, Jenny Loveday and himself. He then matched them to original music and lyrics by Jenny Loveday, Peter Cleave, Paul Walker and Peter Hicks. Terry has moved up the road to Wanganui so he is not too far away. Terry certainly expanded the public broadcasting by community groups here in Palmerston North. Right now on Access Triple Nine AM you can hear many view point. The National Party, the Labour Party, Community Groups, Ethic Groups all use the station. Terry has left us a station to be proud of…

6. My God say’s she thinks the PN Railway Station would make a good monument to the Roger Douglas era. [Rusted, weed filled and with no staff]. And I agree with her.


Peter J Wheeler

Wheeler@inspire.net.nz