Bad move: Selling council pensioner housing would bring in little return and push pensioners' rents up, says Stephen Palmer. Photo/file
Asset sales
So Steve Baron wants Whanganui District Council to sell assets to reduce debt and make capital available for essentials like a replacement for Dublin St Bridge.
Remember the Government asset sales programme?
Telecom: $1 billion a year in dividends given away.
Railways: Sold, asset-stripped by Fay Richwhite and then bought back and costing millions to repair the damage.
Air NZ: Partly bought back when profit dropped, trading well since.
Power companies: Savage increases in power prices, profits exported.
Government debt: Through the roof!
Dublin St Bridge will last indefinitely if it is properly maintained. Traffic congestion there is not caused by the bridge but by the stupid roundabout at the city end. That could be fixed tomorrow for chicken-feed if we had traffic engineers with one iota of imagination.
Our pensioner housing is, or was, self-supporting but is loaded with debt because capital repayments were suspended for a period in the 1980s in order to hold down rents when interest rates were high.
So a sale would bring in little return and push pensioners' rents up. Imaginative management is required, not abject surrender.
I agree with Steve that Handley St and Montgomery reserves could be sold, but all his other ideas are just Tory nonsense.
STEPHEN PALMER
Bastia Hill
Pronunciation
Will someone (possibly the mayor) please inform TV1 reporters that this town is not called FUNGANUI. Fonganui was bad enough, but this latest attempt at cultural compliance is nothing short of disgusting!
D. PARTNER
Eastown
Slipway charges
In reply to Helen Craig's response, the dredging at the slipway is required so the Coastguard can get out and rescue 24/7. Not for the "boaties".
If a plane ditched in the ocean while trying to land at the airport, it would put people's lives at risk if the Coastguard had to wait 1 hours for the tide to come in.
Let's get real here: the council hasn't provided anything worth charging for yet.
I am a member of the sea fishing club; they provide toilets for members, wash facilities and filleting facilities. Yes, we already pay. Let's remember who built the slipway and original walkway: the sea fishing club.
For those who already pay, paying again is just wrong. The Whanganui people who use the current set-up get it off the back of the sea fishing club. To be fair, the council has supported the club with money to get the ramp operation to where it was before the walkway extension and turning area sealing.
But remember, none of the latest spending was necessary for the actual boating people to launch.
User pays is current, Helen, for those who support the sea fishing club.
BRUCE EDWARDS
Whanganui
Ramp issues
In reply to councillor Charlie Anderson's letter (April 5) about the Castlecliff boat ramp.
Sorry, councillor, all boaties do not spend hundreds of dollars and catch hundreds of dollars of fish.
However, my letter was not about not paying ramp fees; it was to support Mr McGregor in his report that the ramp and area were not of a standard yet to justify fees.
I give councillor Helen Craig her due when she states she will update herself on the situation.
I repeat: the council has not fulfilled its obligation to keep the ramp usable 24/7 by emergency services. The ramp is strewn with rocks and debris, the ramp area would have to be dredged regularly, a barrier to the surge put in place to stop damage to boats, and swimming in the ramp area would have to cease.
Also, the navigational aids at the ramp are incorrect, leading to unwary boaties running aground, filling their motors with silt that can lead to very expensive repairs.
Given the principles the council will apply to charging at the ramp, will it apply these to other recreational facilities?
As Ms Craig's friends consider it is a good idea to charge ramp fees, I presume that they would also consider charging at Bason Reserve, and Kowhai Park, and stopping free gas at barbecue areas in our public parks, etc, as these are leisure areas built by voluntary labour but maintained by the council.
I am sure there will be many other areas the public could suggest could be looked into as well.
With the promise of a big surge in rates with the sewerage ponds coming on line, all council expenditure and subsidising will have to be looked at and the same principles applied to all.
T. MULLINS
Whanganui
Family reunion
Recently I travelled to Norway for the first time, to meet members of my wider family and to visit my great-great-grandfather's grave (Lars Hansen, died 1867).
His widow, my great-great-grandmother, came to New Zealand from Norway on a sailing ship in 1872. Her name was Eli Larsen (also known as Eli Jorkelsen).
She came with all of her children and grandchildren, except for one son who stayed in Norway for military service.
They settled in the Wairarapa as part of Prime Minister Vogel's immigration scheme.
Our relatives in Norway and in New Zealand are keen for us to organise a family reunion here in New Zealand. We have decided to take up the challenge.
This is quite a big task as there are around 5000 descendants of Eli and Lars' children living in New Zealand.
We are seeking expressions of interest from those descendants to attend a possible reunion in 2018.
Our contact information is norwegianreunion@gmail.com
WENDY LARSEN
Whanganui
Outdated beliefs
I would like to congratulate and support Russ Hay's most erudite letter of March 22.
Since the time of the Reformation, the traditional monotheistic concept of God has undergone deconstruction due to the inevitable progress in new knowledge. The versions of God as evidenced in the three major streams of monotheism (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) are no longer relevant in today's world.
Judaism is a historic relic, Christianity is described by an ex-fundamentalist preacher as promoting "the most evil character in all of fiction" with hundreds of biblical quotes in support, and Islam, frankly, is an absurd slave religion.
Let's remember that mankind invented the concept of God(s) in our historic naivety to explain reality. It was not the other way around.
This is my personal thought. Just maybe our so-called junk DNA (of which there is a lot) is an alien entity's DNA, which we will never decode.
Eternal life? Maybe we are a cosmic DNA experiment with God inserting DNA in myriad life forms on other planets on a multi-universal scale. Evolution is then allowed to take over, survival of the fittest. I guess at the moment we are losing. We are destroying our Eden, our planet.
It makes more plausible sense than the myths and fantasy of such concepts as the incarnation, resurrection and virgins in paradise.
Recently I read a short story that concluded with the world's first supercomputer being turned on. One question was asked: "Is there a God?" The reply quickly came back: "Now there is."
Scientists predict that around 2045 is the convergent point at which time artificial intelligence has the possibility to supersede us.
I'll be dead by then. Good luck.
PAUL EVANS
Whanganui
Trying time
It was wonderful to see so many excited young athletes around town at the recent secondary schools triathlon.
Restaurants were certainly far busier than normal, and no doubt it was an economic boon to Whanganui.
But spare a thought for the new 25 Somme Parade Cafe. With Somme Parade blocked off around this cafe for two days, it was a particularly trying time for them -- especially as a new business trying to establish themselves.
I have no financial interest or personal association with this new business, but I have enjoyed its ambience, coffee and food on the couple of occasions I have have frequented the place and would like to encourage Chronicle readers to give them a thought the next time you feel like coffee or lunch.
New businesses need all the help they can get.
STEVE BARON
Whanganui
How the summer tourism wave is expected to hit the Whanganui region.