A reader wonders what is going on with Councillor Phil Halse after a run of recent decisions at Whangarei District Council :
Phil Halse has been a councillor for approximately 18 years.
During the last council term, he was deputy mayor, and acting mayor. He was one of the strongest
supporters of the Hundertwasser redevelopment of the NRC building in the Town Basin. There is a great photograph of him with the model of the building enthusiastically extolling its virtues.
But since the last elections he has turned feral. He has reversed his position and driven for the proposal to be ditched. At earlier votes, he gave his reasons that he didn't like the process (which he had controlled), and Whangarei Art Museum Trust wouldn't give him names of those who had promised to contribute money to the project, something he was not entitled to have anyway.
On November 12, he tried to knock out the Prosper Northland Trust proposal for the changed Hundertwasser and Wairau Maori Art Centre, without taking into account it being the leading submission, or comparing it with the other Harbourside option. He failed.
