Alan Rhodes challenged the council that the original agreement with the Government was for a community centre and was not to be repurposed as a commercial site. Council responses were slow in coming.
Local media picked up the story, opinion pieces, letters and texts from both sides of the argument followed; indignation in the community led to a defence by city management.
Laurie Rhodes recalled that "the War Memorial Centre was always a part of the community" and Charlotte Descamps compared the relative lack of commemoration in Napier with her native Flanders where "every day, at 8pm sharp, traffic stops, and the Last Post is sounded."
Emails flew, social media erupted and websites sprang up.
Finally, a councillor, Kirsten Wise, stepped in, and together with deputy mayor Faye White and councillor Annette Brosnan, supported the growing number opposing the council's position that the building and site be renamed "Conference Centre".
"We got it wrong, we'll put it right," she said.
Wise also noted that councillors had not been given all the background material by council management to make a decision on the original name change. She called for greater up-front transparency when such issues are at stake.
Ron Rowe of the Napier RSA said the same thing. They had been given "no mention of a name change".
If citizens and the media fail to notice what politicians and officials are doing in both open council and behind closed doors, some actions can take a long time to put right. One lesson for the community in the War Memorial Centre story is that citizens should be alert.
As Guy Natusch, the original architect of the building, remarked, "Citizens failed to notice …" and Craig Morley warned that when that occurs "bad things will happen …"
When something is not right, morally questionable, or breaks historical agreements, citizens need to speak up.
Do the research, write a letter to the paper, send a text, write an opinion piece, email, start a group, go on social media, start a website, raise consciousness, hold meetings, attend council meetings, heckle if necessary.
Yes, democracy is untidy, and time consuming, but through discussions we understand history, develop a stronger sense of values, make new friends, and grow a sense of identity and community.
To its credit, Hawke's Bay Today encouraged vigorous local debate by publishing letters to the editor, texts, and opinion pieces which gave voice to the local community to counteract propaganda press releases of arguably fake news by council management, helping to maintain a balance of views.
Commentators such as Andrew Frame asked questions worthy of investigative journalism such as querying the amounts paid to consultants for suspect "surveys".
Eventually, if elected leaders ignore the feelings of the people expressed through social media they can miss trends, as Estrada did in the Philippines in 2001, as leaders like Ben Ali in Tunisia, Gaddafi in Libya and Mubarak in Egypt did in the Arab spring of 2011. Public indignation led to the overthrow of those leaders.
Have you ever overheard conversations, particularly in airport lounges, littered with business jargon? Words like "stakeholders" or "touch base" reflecting corporate culture. Oh, and "branding". Originally, wasn't that something farmers did to their animals?
When words like "moral", "legal", "responsibility", "community", or "commemorate" came into contact with the business jargon of the Napier city management, it seemed as if two mutually incomprehensible languages were being spoken.
We all need jobs and companies. We may use business jargon at work. But when we go home, or take the kids to sports events, or hang out with friends, we use language referencing relationships, history, and shared interests. We are multilingual and multicultural.
The War Memorial Centre issue was an enlightening case where both traditional print media and digital media played a role in putting something right.
Perhaps the councillors who precipitated this reflection on collective memory and community identity should be thanked. Maybe they motivated some people in Napier to think about their city's culture, not just its businesses.
Hawke's Bay is a fascinating place, and deserves better than to be "branded" merely as an Art Deco theme park with wine bars for tourists.
It has worthy buildings of other styles. From the venerable Hawke's Bay Club to the modern Century Theatre.
Other activities, too, centring on McLean Park and the Napier Sailing Club. These are assets celebrating Napier's diversity of community and its cultural life; they characterise Napier, not as a short-term, one-trick, quick-buck marketplace, but as an attractive historical and cultural community.
• Barry Natusch is a professor at Nihon University in Tokyo.
