The article says the building now occupied by the kura was made “compliant” when the GDC was in it temporarily. Compliance for early childhood and junior school education purposes is on a different planet from compliance for office use, and even more so if overnight stays are contemplated for those tamariki.
This part of the CBD is the “downtown” area, where locals and visitors should be able to focus on retail and relaxation, and for Gisborne, this is the area through which cruise ship visitors gain their first (and lasting) impressions of our community.
Councillors and GDC staff need to walk the two blocks from Peel St to the river and back, counting the number of dilapidated, empty buildings and blank shop windows. This area of town seriously needs revitalising.
In my opinion, reopening of a bar with food available is the ideal catalyst for such a revival. And with different operating hours, there is really no valid reason why a kura and a hospitality outlet can’t co-exist – with sensible, negotiated restrictions on each.
We live in a democratic country. Councillors are elected to provide the governance to set the “rules” for the best outcomes for the whole of our community, not just one sector. Council staff prepare reports and recommendations for those rules, but it is the responsibility of councillors to review and dissect those reports – and amend the recommendations if necessary to provide fair and equitable outcomes for a thriving community.
John Wells
‘Just a scrub burn’
Re: Farmers understand and appreciate the land, July 25 letter.
Unfortunately, acres and acres of native vegetation is still sprayed and burned off here every year by landowners, often on very steep hillsides. It is just accepted – no one generally bats an eye. Every autumn we see the huge billowing smoke clouds from the back of our hills; “just a scrub burn”, people say.
Kānuka holds our unstable hills together and is also an incredible habitat for our native birds, geckos and insects. Untold millions of creatures die instantly when it is sprayed and burned off.
This to me is one major example of what needs to change.
Tanya Hawthorne
Return speed limits
I may be against the flow of things and the culture of the Gisborne Herald, but my vote goes towards returning the speed limits to what they were – especially in the local small townships and even in the city.
I support the variable speed limits around schools.
Mike Mather
Money for meddling
Re: Reversing speed cuts, July 24 story.
I guess an extra $100 million of borrowing over the next five years will allow the GDC to continue to administer wokeness of this nature, with no respect to the cost of all these efforts to slow down motorists.
Does the GDC really want to borrow more money so they can waste it on speed humps, speed cameras and road signs? Look at what has happened to the health department, ie overspending by $130m a month. Have services improved?
I would like to have an assurance from the mayor and CEO that existing services are being served within the rates budget right now. If they can prove that, their cries for more borrowing might get some attention but for now I remain convinced that the GDC is currently addicted to spending more than it is earning.
Maybe Anne Tolley can also be our commissioner?
I ask LGNZ: how does borrowing more money get any council in New Zealand to net zero? The interest bill on borrowed money does not point to net zero. The interest rate on hundreds of millions points to bankruptcy.
At, say, 5%, the yearly interest rate on the $145m that the GDC has already ticked up comes to about $7m spread between 20,000-odd ratepayers, and that is without repaying any principal. The GDC wants to increase that to $248m! Where are ratepayers supposed to get that kind of money? Where is the “wellbeing” in an ever-growing interest bill like that?
No human can fight climate change so what is the logic of borrowing to “fight climate change”? We must endure climate change by living within our means and using our dollars productively, on real services instead of debt servicing.
Climate change will not alter its path one way or the other, just because the GDC chooses to bankrupt us back to the Stone Age by borrowing to build bridges to nowhere. That is akin to using borrowed money to clear the beach, only to wake up the next morning to see the beach “rewilded”.
Peter Jones
