Editorial: A simple decision has been made very complicated

Andrew Austin, Editor of Hawke's Bay Today.

One has to wonder if the Napier City Council has made the issue of the Roll of Honour and Eternal Flame more complicated than it needed to be.

Against a tidal wave of public unhappiness over the removal of these two items from their home at the Napier Conference Centre, the council is standing firm and insisting it will go through a process of finding the best place to house the precious items. The project's working group will meet on July 12 to discuss the issue.

The point is that we all know where the best place is - where it was taken from in the first place.

If ever an issue called for the mayor of Bill Dalton and council chief executive Wayne Jack to make a quick decision it is this. Surely all they need to do is to stroll down to the conference centre and find a suitable spot. After that they could get the councillors together to approve it.

A press release could then go out saying that they had listened to the people and they would suddenly find themselves on the right side of public sentiment.

We would certainly give that decision prominent space in the paper.

Sometimes admitting you got something wrong is the best course of action and even those who were appalled by the council's handling of the matter would give them credit for the move.

Our repeated requests for a Hawke's Bay Today photographer to be allowed to take a photo of the Eternal Flame in storage have been declined.

We have been assured the flame is safe and still lit.

There is some good news in that the council has now informed us that they will send us a photo of the flame. We will publish it as soon as we can.

But one has to wonder why the people of Napier have not been listened to. Let's return the items to their rightful place.