A question for the TECT trustees: Which of you campaigned for your seat on the basis that you supported keeping the status quo with regard to the TECT cheque? If that was your stated position at the time of election, then you have no mandate to support the proposed change. I do not accept the validity of the reasons given for the change. Consumer beneficiaries who wish to, or feel they can afford to, already have the option to return their cheque to be used for charitable purposes. Stop trying to bribe us, either come up with more and better options for the beneficiaries, or leave it alone.
P Barnard
Pyes Pa
In regards to the proposed museum: Don't you people in the council office get it? A lot of people don't want it. A lot.
Andy Craw
Matua
I strongly support and endorse most of what DL Gibbs (Letters, February 10) has to say on the TECT proposal as the figures and assessments of the position pretty well equate with mine. If a replacement charitable trust is formed, who will be the trustees? How will the trustees be elected? And, more importantly, who controls what community/charity projects are funded? In other words, who controls the minders? By my calculation, each TECT beneficiary's interest is worth about $12,000, so why would anyone accept $2500 cash plus smaller annual payouts for five years and in return lose control of all the assets on an 80/20 split? It really is a no-brainer, so the answer is don't approve this nonsense, because it looks to me to be nothing more than an attempt to remove assets out of TECT beneficiaries' line of vision and control, then embark on spending up large on all the nice-to-haves unimpeded and unrestrained and outside the public spotlight. Call it a conspiracy theory but I can see some dark spectre figures lurking in the background trying to pull the strings and call the shots here.
S Paterson
Mount Maunganui
