Northland news in brief: Quilt and Textile Art on display; and top nurse returns to run Hokianga Health

The quilted car the Whangārei Patchworkers and Quilters Club has dressed up to promote its upcoming Quilt and Textile Art show.

Whangārei Patchworkers and Quilters Club is holding its biennial Quilt and Textile Art show next weekend. The show, at Forum North from September 11-13, will feature merchants, a sales table, guest exhibitors and the Aotearoa Quilters' Journey Challenge.
It will be open from 10am to 4pm on Friday and Saturday and from 10am to 3pm on Sunday. For more information check out the Whangārei Patchworkers and Quilters Club's Facebook page.

New role for Broodkoorn

Margareth Broodkoorn has been appointed as the new CEO of the Hokianga Health Community Trust.

Margareth Broodkoorn has left her role as the Ministry of Health's Chief Nursing Officer, and has been appointed the new CEO of the Hokianga Health Community Trust. Broodkoorn, who was Northland DHB's Director of Nursing and Midwifery before taking up the Ministry role in February 2019, replaces long-serving Hokianga Health CEO John Wigglesworth. Broodkoorn was the first Māori chief nursing officer.

Alleged two-dog attack

Far North District Council is investigating a report that two dogs attacked a cow in Kaitaia last week. The report came via the police from a motorist in Donald Lane shortly after 5.30pm on Wednesday. An animal management officer was there within 30 minutes, and found an injured cow but no sign of the dogs. The officer contacted the farmer, and waited there for the farmer to arrive before patrolling the area, but again there was no sign of the dogs. A council spokesman said animal management staff would contact the witness to take a statement. "The information we currently have is that a brown and a black dog were involved in the attack," he said yesterday. Animal management officers would be contacting dog owners in the area. They were also undertaking regular, intensive patrols of the area, and had followed up a number of leads, visiting several properties in an effort to locate the dogs, so far without success.

Regional taxes v Govt funding

Northlanders' tax contribution to development in their region needs to be worked out according to Whangārei District Council. It's backing a call for Local Government New Zealand to work with Treasury, Statistics New Zealand and other government agencies to annually put together how much Northland and other regions around New Zealand each pay in taxes. This would be assessed in a two-part analysis. The other part of would be looking into how much each region receives in government funding. The call came out of a WDC's August 13 extraordinary council meeting which was supported by a 79 per cent majority with councillors Ken Couper, Shelley Deeming and Greg Martin voting against the council support for the call.

Five new Covid cases

There were five new cases of Covid-19 reported in New Zealand yesterday – two imported cases detected in managed isolation facilities and three are community cases. There was also one Covid-related death, a man in his 50s who was part of the August Auckland cluster and died yesterday at Middlemore Hospital. The man was a confirmed case of Covid-19. He was admitted to Middlemore as an inpatient via ED from quarantine and then cared for in the ICU. All three new community cases are epidemiologically linked to the Mt Roskill Evangelical Church cluster, which is known to be linked to the wider Auckland August cluster. The two imported cases are children who are family members of previously identified cases who had arrived from India on August 23. Both children are aged under 9 and were already in quarantine with family members at the Auckland quarantine facility. The country's total active cases is 112 and the number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 is now 1413.

Clarification

A Northern Advocate story on Thursday about the final $8 million sealing of Pouto Rd south of Dargaville to Pouto Point 'Sealing Pouto Rd Northland's largest sealing project for a decade' included reference to the about 1000 cyclists who travel the road every two years as part of the national Tour Aotearoa event. It said the cyclists stayed at Pouto, on the Waikaretu Marae. However, about one third of those cyclists continued straight through on to Auckland by boat across Kaipara Harbour without stopping. The other 600 people almost all stayed at the Pouto Marine Hall campground, with a small handful at the marae and Kellys Bay Reserve Camp, about 20km to the north.