Editorial: We all want a better Hawkes Bay

"C'mon the Bay" has just become a relative term.

Last Friday, the captains of industry fired a broadside across Napier City Council's bow for apparently stalling a study into the province's social and economic performance.

Lobby group A Better Hawke's Bay (ABHB) released a statement accusing the council of dysfunction and of deliberately frustrating the proposal to have Dame Margaret Bazley conduct an independent study.

"A Better Hawke's Bay is aghast that the study's terms of reference and its commencement are being held up by Napier [City Council]", the group said.

To the group, it's a study into the Bay's social and economic well-being.

To Napier City Council, it's a study into amalgamation. Of course the "A-word" is banned, these days, spoken only in hushed tones.

But that's understandable. I agree with its taboo status. Decades of puerile debate over the cities' potential amalgamation has rendered the word useless.

When I was at secondary school in Hastings in the mid 80s, terms like "Ha-stinks" and "Na-pure" were often bandied about - both pointedly and in jest. They still are.

Friday's ultimatum from ABHB warned, in the event of further alleged inaction, it would launch a "recruitment drive" for "pro-Hawke's Bay' council candidates for next year's local body elections". It cited dire readings from an "economic scoreboard".

Here's hoping our province's "well-being" isn't measured on that scoreboard only. Surely we're about more than where we're faring in the financial rat race.

And while the demand smacked of a scene from The Sopranos, where I do agree with the group is in its suggestion that the study is about being "pro-Hawke's Bay".

I'm "pro" myself. I have no option. Not only was I born, sun-grown and dirt-raised on these fertile soils, my kids too now enjoy the same lifestyle.

"Na-pure" City Council may have stone-walled the study. Perhaps because it wasn't entirely sure of what it was endorsing. Yet it's important to remember we're talking about a probe into the health of both cities.

If the study's brief is to outline where the province can improve in community and commerce, then we have little to lose.

C'mon the Bay.