Bruce Bisset
Havelock North residents could be forgiven for feeling a bit hard done by of late, what with bad water, bad smells, bad planning and generally bad governance from all and sundry assailing their normally genteel clime.
It's tempting to think it is some sort of long-delayed payback for having to drag the borough kicking and screaming into amalgamation with the greater Hastings district back in 89, save that as the Government inquiry into the gastro outbreak has shown, the council's corporate memory rarely extends that far back.
And is less than perfect when it does.
It does point up two things, though: that as nice as it may be for a suburb to have its own identity, it is a mistake to treat Havvers (or Flaxmere, or any other area) as "separate" from the rest of the city; and that no matter where you live you run the risk of encountering disaster, by mishap or design.
Sure, Hastings overall is divided by a mix of distance, geography, demographics, and hydrology into three main distinct parts, which could broadly be called poortown, middletown, and richtown. Broadly, note.
Planners and politicians alike struggle with this. It's hard to come up with cohesive planning when the city's so bitsy, and it's hard for a mayor in particular to fairly claim to represent all those bits.
Add in we're now at the point where further incremental expansion is taking prime growing land we can ill-afford to lose, plus that the major impetus for growth is retirement enclaves (which want flat land) and wealthy migrants, and you have an unbalanced and awkward governance equation.
However, basic infrastructure for water, sewage, stormwater, and transport should be as good in one part of The Stings as any other. Certainly clean safe water - preferably without any chemical additives - is a service the council must fully guarantee.
It may be unfair to blame mayor Lawrence Yule, but it's a matter of record his council failed to recognise inherent problems with the integrity of the water supply, so it's a fair call to suggest someone high on the ladder - logically chief executive Ross McLeod - should embrace accountability for that and resign.
That's a small price compared to the suffering of those facing a lifetime of illness as a result of the council's lack of care, but it would provide some closure.
Now as National party candidate, Yule himself is compromised with his position on GMOs and the more general issue of water ownership running counter to his party's stance. His admission he'll feel obliged to tow the party line doubtless went down like a lead balloon in most electorate households.
This is where Anna Lorck has the edge; she and Labour are unflinchingly in favour of a revisionist conversation about water leading to a fairer public-rights-first regime.
In the same way whoever steps up to be mayor of Hastings must not only understand all its disparate parts, but that no one part is greater than any other; it may be a complex jigsaw but it has to be assembled whole.
This is why stale one-trick ponies and newbies trying to increase their profile should be careful they're not acting as "spoilers" against someone with broader appeal.
If a genuine contender - and admittedly, that cupboard looks a bit bare at first glance - emerges to challenge heir-apparent Sandra Hazlehurst for the job, others should withdraw and leave the electorate with a clear choice.
But hey, that's common sense, which doesn't figure much in politics.
Nor, apparently, in infrastructure maintenance, where the rule seems to have been, if it ain't broke yet, ignore it.