Mayors Bill Dalton, Napier, and Lawrence Yule, Hastings, argue the amalgamation issue back in April, five months before the issue was decided.
Mayors Bill Dalton, Napier, and Lawrence Yule, Hastings, argue the amalgamation issue back in April, five months before the issue was decided.
The year's almost gone, but what do we remember? Reporter Doug Laing narrows down memory lane, with the slightest glimpse at the future path.
To many people, September 15 loomed as a red letter day as voters from Mahia to Porangahau posted their votes on the issue of whether there would be a local government marriage in Hawke's Bay.
The Local Government Commission's proposal for the amalgamation of the Hawke's Bay Regional, Napier City and Wairoa, Hastings and Central Hawke's Bay district councils was given a resounding "No".
At the time, the debate seemed to have done more to divide the region, than it had to bring it together.
For the record, 69,865 voted in the poll - 46,318 against and 23,359 for.
It was enough to bury the issue and the debate over shared services. But it was also back to the past, with Napier Mayor Bill Dalton contemplating whether some more northern parts of the Hastings District Council area could become part of the Napier City Council area, or whatever it may be called, should there be an expansion of its boundaries.
This took the debate back to 1989 when the five authorities were created by a nationwide local government rationalisation, consolidating about 850 authorities (including power, hospital and harbour boards) into 88 - the lowest number in more than a century.
As one who recalls attending council meetings of boroughs and counties with populations of well under 1000, where the story of the year was the colour of the paint on the main highway latrine, that was not before time.
One of the ways we found some respite from the issue was for our rugby team, the Magpies, to hold the Ranfurly Shield, for another 24 days, until a Waikato team, starring a Hawke's Bay boy who scored three tries, won their challenge at McLean Park on October 9. The Magpies did however bounce back to win the peculiarly named "championship", and promotion to a sort of PC-named "premiership" next year, when they will still play half of the teams they played in the competition last year.
Robbie Fruean goes Lomu-style in September's 17-12 win over the Jaffas in their Ranfurly Shield match.
As a side issue, there seemed more appreciation that in the ever important game of attracting visitors, Hawke's Bay - because of its climate - is an events destination, therefore needing events.
New examples have been the staging of a match in the Australian NRL rugby league competition in Napier in May, and the attracting of the national road cycling championships to Napier, to be held in January as the part of a new cycling festival.
These go with such annual events as the Horse of the Year Show in March, and the Mission Concert, perhaps a victim of its own success in being scrapped in 2015 but to be revived as a two-concert venture at the end of the February in the New Year.
The cycling will put lots of bums on seats, highlighting that they don't always have to be those funded at the gate, and encourage the innovators of the future to see what else attracts punters our way.
Sandwiching these events has been a huge project known as the Ruataniwha Dam, two words which it appears were first mentioned in Hawke's Bay Today in co-relation as recently as February 2009.
Latest indication is another decision whether to go ahead or not will come early in 2016, but it seems there's a lot of water to flow under the bridges of the Makaroro and Tukituki rivers yet.
