The Westende site was a symbol of the recovery, and the replacement building - the very first of the rebuild - gave hope to the people of Christchurch.
The council has bought it for more than $3 million. If that's not an example of profligate spending, I don't know what is.
And another thing while on the subject of reckless fiscal fritter, did you know that the Treaty of Waitangi document, which is housed at Archives New Zealand, Wellington, will be moved to a new home? The plan was for the founding document to be moved a few hundred metres along the road to the National Library last year, but that has been postponed to 2017. Why then, even though the document hasn't moved an inch, has someone managed to blow $2.3 million on the project so far?
It seems plans for the destined exhibition space went way too big, with a misguided proposal to squeeze in too many historical documents. In simple terms, there wasn't enough space.
Peter Murray from Information Knowledge Services, which is at the sharp end of all this, made the admission: "We've definitely learned from the experience.
There's an element of loss of value, for sure. But it's not entirely wasted money."
The project team decided to "refocus" with a fresh proposal, which has just been given the go-ahead to coincide with the opening of the new venue in 2017.
Hmm, a costly lesson for sure. So does that mean that during that time another few million dollars of taxpayers' dollars is going to be frittered away? The answer is "Yes", as I have been told the budget for the move and new display is $7 million. Good grief, that's almost as much as two state houses on Auckland's North Shore.
One law for some - another law for the rest. Counties Manukau police had to back down after police officers were told not to ticket unlicensed Maori drivers caught behind the wheel. With a disproportionate percentage of Maori in and around the city being ticketed, the idea was to help nip downward spirals in the bud, where a kid who gets arrested, goes to court, then gets fined $500 and can't pay it.
It has good intentions, but such an idea will go down like a lead balloon with most Kiwis and split the country apart.
That aside, I am curious to know who typed up the controversial guideline document in the first place.
Look at these typos in section 5: "All Maori drivers detected driving without liscences or in breach of liscence conditions given compliance and referred to community based driver liscence training. Failure to compy within a 2 month period will result in an infringement being issed".
"[The document] is probably not worded as well as it can be," Superintendent John Tims said. He's not wrong there!
After the $24 million jackpot being struck at Springfield Superette a few weeks ago, store owner Raj will be delighted to know that he's had another lucky winner - me! Imagine my howls of delight when the ticket scanner played the jingle that every lotto player yearns to hear.
Leaving the store $35 richer certainly put a spring in my step.
-Brian Holden has lived in Rotorua for most of his life and has been writing his weekly column for 11 years.
