Planning ahead
So for the first time in 17 years, Tauranga now has water restrictions.
Do not place the blame for this fully on the 2016 elected council but, in my view, there is certainly some justification in blaming some of the councillors who were on and are still on the council when the proposed Te Puke water treatment plant was confirmed around 2008.
I was on the council when this new plant, fed by the Waiari Stream, was approved but the commencement of the actual building of the plant was delayed four to five years due to the Global Financial Crisis, which resulted in little population growth in Tauranga and at the time this was a wise decision.
However, I believe it is increasingly apparent that the building of the plant should have commenced in 2012/2013, being five years later when enormous growth was being experienced in Tauranga which would obviously result in higher water usage.
But no, the council, and councillors elected in both 2010 and 2013, did nothing other than to commit to building the plant one day and, with a building timeframe of over three years, we are now experiencing the result of these poor decisions and will do so for many years to come.
Mike Baker
Bethlehem
Equal representation
Alan Armstrong (Letters, December 16) suggests a geographic ward and a Maori ward serve the same purpose. They don't. A geographic ward represents a community with an identifiable geographic interest. The councillors elected represent all their community, irrespective of ethnicity. A Maori ward is the opposite, being elected by and answerable only to an ethnic group and required to promote their wants as opposed to the needs of the wider community. Would Asian and Pasifika wards be appropriate? And don't forget the Irish and the Dutch.
Alan Armstrong reaches for the go-to word racist to support his case but seems blinkered to the fact that racism is a group having rights, privileges, and power accorded on the basis of race that is not enjoyed by other ethnicities. This is contrary to the principles of democracy and Article 3 of the Treaty of Waitangi which grants equality of citizenship.
In New Plymouth, it was not the poll that was polarising, but the actions of a mayor who didn't listen to the people and thought he could subvert democracy. Western Bay Council is like deja vu.
Special rights based on ethnicity will only sow the seeds of resentment and create a divided society.
Richard Prince
Welcome Bay
