This little saga doesn't represent the best work of any of these organisations, one of which surely has to be responsible. Barclay certainly had a point when he suggested that if the district council owned his house, and he owned the old river bed, he would be expected to do something.
Regan Jones' position is more perilous than Barclay's. The back wall of his garage is now half as far from the edge of the river bank than it was a few years ago, and he has been moving fences for some time as they threatened to disappear. The edge of the bank is now only a few metres from his house, and if something isn't done within the not too distant future it will begin to sink.
Jones has long believed that it is a pipe that takes stormwater from Matthews' Ave to the old river bed that is causing the problem. He believes the pipe has broken, the major evidence of that being long-established cracks in concrete. If he's right, he could be forgiven for believing that the district council has to do something.
One assumes that the pipe, and the water it carries (or doesn't), are the council's, but no one appears to have acted on that possibility in the four years that he's been complaining.
There might be another clue regarding responsibility. In Kitchener St, on the other side of the river bed from Matthews' Ave, the district council has erected a sign declaring it to be a council reserve, and stating that rubbish is not to be dumped there. It seems odd that part of the river bed is a council reserve, and no one knows who owns the rest.
Part of the river bed was filled in years ago, by the Kaitaia Borough Council, to extend Kitchener St.
The Northland Age has only spoken to Barclay and Jones; other properties might also be affected, but even if there aren't more, someone needs to do something. The slumping is the more pressing issue, but the river bed itself is a weed-infested cesspit. It holds significant quantities of water after heavy rain, which Jones says slowly seeps into the Awanui River, but for much of the year retains a small quantity of stagnant water, which has to be an ideal habitat for mosquitoes and rats.
It is unsightly, no doubt unhealthy and definitely dangerous, and even if it doesn't meet the criteria for EQC involvement, it must be of concern to one or both of the councils. At the very least one of them could solve the mystery of who owns it so Jones and Barclay know exactly who to appeal to. Surely one of the councils could answer that question and start the wheels turning.
The district council might also like to explain where its Kitchener St reserve ends and the ownerless wilderness begins.
Priorities
It would be churlish not to be grateful for the cash the government has been flinging at the Far North over recent weeks. The timing might be suspect, given that the man who is making the announcements is hoping to win Northland in next month's election, and is widely regarded as his party's best hope of staying in Parliament, but by and large the money has gone to worthy projects that have been on various wish lists for a very long time.
Those wish lists include the sculpture Chris Booth plans to build outside Kerikeri, a collection of suspended rocks that will apparently tell those who see it how well they're doing in terms of countering climate change. It is not surprising, however, that critics reckon $550,000 could be better spent.
Jones was right, to a point, when he defended the grant, saying it would help pay wages for the contractors who would be involved, and that the money would filter into the community, at a time when every job has added value given the impact of Covid-19. No doubt many people will think it is money well spent, but it does raise the question of priorities.
It smacks a little of excessive enthusiasm to find something, anything, that will be visible and that will be connected, in the short-term at least, with government funding, without which it would likely never be built, or at least not for some time to come.
There are better candidates for government largesse, even a relatively paltry sum such as $550,000, however, albeit not offering quite the same instant gratification. Kerikeri Retirement Village CEO Hilary Sumpter, for example, asks in this issue of the Northland Age why it is that civic and political leaders are apparently comfortable with the fact that aged care provision in provincial centres is provided predominantly by "under-funded, under-resourced and hopelessly-stretched" charitable community organisations. Good question.
Half a million dollars might pay for a sculpture but would do little to avert the aged care disaster that Sumpter warns is coming our way. But it would be a start, and would at least demonstrate that the proper funding of aged care is on politicians' radar.
The creation of jobs should not necessarily be the sole criterion for the funding that has been announced for the Far North, or anywhere else, in that many of the projects have real additional value for the recipient communities, but works of art would not seem to have as great a claim as a genuine, increasingly pressing social calamity that no one seems to be showing any interest in whatsoever.
Given predictions that we ain't seen nothing yet in terms of Covid-19's economic impact, aged care is unlikely to take centre stage any time soon. If Hilary Sumpter is right we might all live to regret that.
