Letters to the editor: Treatment of speaker at ratepayers' meeting shameful

Tauranga Ratepayers Alliance steering committee spokeswoman Kim Williams at the launch event. Photo / File

I think the treatment Kim Williams received, as reported in the Bay of Plenty Times on May 28, was shameful.

Although your report doesn't say, I hope that her intention was to offer an interpretation.

Officially New Zealand is a bi-lingual nation (tri-lingual if you count sign language). Not everyone speaks fluent te reo Māori yet, but we are getting there.

Until we do, to address a public meeting in any language that not all present understand without offering an interpretation is, in my opinion, inconsiderate.

Ian Young
Pāpāmoa

Māori language forced upon us

Re the criticism of Kim Williams at the Ratepayers Alliance meeting. It was in my view completely unjustified, rude and insolent.

I think it was partly caused by frustration with the way Māori language is, in my view, being forced on us. I refer to radio, television, place names, not to mention Māori wards.

To finish on a positive note, we do not hear any dissension when our national anthem is sung in Māori.

David Lowe
Mount Maunganui

Disappointed

Re Totara St cycleway - I was disappointed to hear that once again this project is delayed.

If budget is the reason, would someone please explain to me how a 2.6km cycleway can cost $8.5 million?

By my reckoning that is $3269 per metre. Why is it other cities and towns in NZ are doing so much better than Tauranga in providing safe cycling infrastructure?

Russell Wenn
Ōropi

Local flooding issue

The massive flooding in Canterbury reminds us of the major flood event in Edgecumbe in 2017.

Perhaps now is a good time to ask the Bay of Plenty Regional Council how it is getting on with the remediation of stop banks and silted-up waterways, especially those originally slated for action back in 2010.

I fear the answer will be that our rates money has been spent not on yellow bulldozers and excavators, but on big empty yellow buses.

Ross W Ogle
Greerton

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