From the Wellington Regional Council Facebook page:

Walk and talk along the Waikanae River with GW Flood Protection Officers and Friends of the Waikanae River. Friday 27 November 2015, 9am to 2:30pm, meet at Edgewater Park. RSVP essential, by Friday 20 November 2015:

Susan Jones, 04 830 4048 or susan.jones@gw.govt.nz.

The KIN photo

We were intrigued by this post on the Kapiti Independent News site, and went to check it out.  Well, it’s not official and to be frank, hardly a canoeway either.  The stream water near the asserted Coastlands starting point simply isn’t deep enough.  We didn’t walk very far along the path, but assume that their pics were taken further along where the stream is deeper.

Our photo

We have no basis for endorsing these observations from personal experience. The February by-election in Waikanae was refreshingly free of personal acrimony; the candidates addressed issues and did not attack each other.

There should be courtesy, respect and honesty at all times and we can, accordingly, appreciate Dr Bolton’s feelings, as we ourselves witnessed extraordinary disrespect and untruths aimed at us in 2013 from a certain ill-tempered lawyer associate (not Michael Scott) of a local property developer.

*******************************************

11 Beachwater Gr
Paraparaumu Beach

904-1987

James Westbury
Waikanae Community Board

Not private, not confidential

Dear Mr Westbury

Based on today’s column in the Kapiti News you are presumably an individual of independent mind, as distinct from those on the boards and council who are self-serving opportunists. Consider a few matters re Waikanae board and the council:

1. Already since February, Michael Scott has shown himself to be, I suggest, among the most ill-mannered and arrogant of councillors, ill-mannered towards other councillors, namely Jackie Elliott and David Scott, and towards the public. From what myself and others have observed of him, some of his antics include bizarre finger gestures towards David Scott for no apparent reason and in no obvious context. When David Scott objected to this, rather than Michael Scott being reprimanded by Church, it was David who was reprimanded for objecting, because Michael is presumably part of what Cr Gurunathan has described as one of ‘the in crowd’. It is this type of situation which has resulted in Cr Gurunathan taking KCDC to court, which will be yet another council fiasco, like the Standens matter.

2. Michael Scott’s gratuitous quip to Jackie Elliott that she words what she
states in an inept manner, and his stated refusal to apologise when asked by Elliott. What a cad.

3. Michael Scott’s quip about a rep. from the Mens Shed after he had spoken and left.

4. After a ratepayer, Mr John Vickerman of Waikanae, a civil engineer, had taken time from work and waited for 6 hours to speak for 3 minutes on 3 subjects, Michael S. interrupted him to say that he wasn’t interested in hearing about 2 of those 3 subjects. Mr Vickerman proceeded after objections from David Scott that he has a right to speak on any subject at that time.

5. Michael Scott was one of a gaggle of the majority of councillors who claimed he witnessed me chase after Janet Holborow with a walking stick, and hence he was one of those who was subject to a Code of Conduct complaint for lying, filed by me. It was this matter to a significant extent that has recently resulted in the touted white ribbon status of the KCDC being revoked, although council is in some type of psychotic collective denial.

– While Michael Scott claims to have been a witness, to jump aboard a corrupt bandwagon with most of the others, he was in fact chatting at the time of the non-event with David Scott in the councillors’ lounge and could not have seen anything, even had it taken place. Others also saw him as the first to leave chambers, because it was his inaugural luncheon he was attending to.

– Despite what you might have been told or read, my code complaints were not heard on the evidence and overturned on that basis. Michael Scott presented a submission on the day that standing orders supersede the code at council meetings. Hence his colleagues jumped at the opportunity to simply nullify the code, and my complaints and those of Jackie Elliott, were voted out on that pretext. Minor problem: my complaints relate to alleged events that were supposed to have taken place during lunch recess. Because of Michael Scott’s ineptitude and /or dishonesty, this is one of the primary grounds for a complaint to the Ombudsman as a procedural matter.

6. My complaint to the Law Society on Michael Scott’s dishonesty is to be heard on 23 November. In his submission to the LS, Michael Scott contended not that he had been truthful, but that the complaint did not come within the LS jurisdiction. My complaint has already been accepted as within the jurisdiction. Pure hubris.

Eric Gregory

Mr Gregory, several months after the non-event with Holborow, like others, jumped on the bandwagon and stated he too witnessed something. I am not too sure what, as he did not reply to my request to be specific. He stated he saw me swinging my walking stick within chamber while I was walking, presumably as distinct from, say, dragging it limply along the floor, or trying to shove it into my trouser pocket(?). What does he think walking sticks are used for?

After the bogus code of conduct hearing, from which Crs David Scott and
Gurunathan withdrew on the basis that, as I contended also, it was a breach of common law on multiple levels, outside KCDC premises Eric Gregory quipped to me: ‘At least I have not been in jail for lying’. He was heard to say this by several people. What this means I cannot guess, and he would not explain despite my repeated requests. It brings into question whether one is dealing with someone possessed of the ‘full quid’?

This is not private, not confidential and I don’t give a God-damn who sees it. I am completely truthful, have no partisan political motives, and am open in what I state. You are free to discuss any of these matters with my wife and I, and (I think) indeed others, including Waikanae ratepayers who have witnessed these events.

I am merely writing to you in the hope that , having myself been confronted by the ineptitude, lack of civility, cowardice, lies and narcissism, to say the least (as have other ratepayers, such as the Standens, Salima Padamsey, Julie Snodgrass, John Vickerman, my wife Kathy, Dale Evans, Jenny Cronin, Max Task, and God knows who else) you will be cognisant of the type of people who now control council, and that those such as yourself will take a lead in opposing what amounts to, I suggest, from my knowledge of psychology, collective sociopathy.

Yours sincerely
K R Bolton

Greetings

This is just a quick reminder that we are holding a workshop tomorrow evening on land use planning and the Resource Management Act (RMA), including the District Plan and resource consents.

Sylvia Allan will provide some technical input in the shape of an overview presentation and then we will break into smaller groups to discuss somecase studies of different fictional development proposals and how they might be controlled through the RMA.

At the end there will be a short session for questions and answers of Sylvia and the council planners who will be present.

When: 6 – 7.30 pm, Wednesday 18 November

Where: St Michael’s Church, corner of Ngâpaki and Rangihiroa Streets

More information about Sylvia Allan’s credentials is on the online forum – www.waikanaebeachforum.org

Looking forward to seeing you there.

Regards,

Alison Lash

Senior Advisor

Kaitohutohu Matua

Tel 04 296 4786

Mobile 027 452 7425

 This is a sign at the entrance to the Kaitawa walk in the hills to the north-east of Waikanae township.

Below is what some lazy, irresponsible and anti-social people do — take a trailer full of trash and dump it where it may suit them; a scene taken at the summit of the Akatawara road behind Waikanae on Sunday 8th November.  This is a scenic lookout point, see the post from July.

“Welcome to Waikanae”

Like all forms of crime, we need to be vigilant and report bad behaviour promptly to authorities — get vehicle details and a description of the miscreant responsible.  As some folks have commented to us, these lazy sods may leave evidence of who they are in what they dump.

The events in Paris yesterday were horrible, but in our immediate locales regularly there are victims of low life scum, particularly those who prey on the elderly.  We have been victims of theft and harassment, so we know what it’s like.  We also know how helpful it is to receive support from sympathizers, and would like to encourage others to do this.

Here are a couple of pamphlets which you can get from the Paraparaumu Police Station at the corner of Rimu Road and Kapiti Road.

As mentioned in the earlier notice, this open afternoon was held today and we took the opportunity to find out what goes on there.

The overall impression was that this is a modern and efficient plant that does what it is supposed to quite well.

The guy showing us around mentioned that they get bad press; it seems that this was primarily a reference to the complaints that used to be made about the taste of bore water which the council used as the source of tap water during the dry summer months.  This complaint, it seems, was the consequence of the high mineral content of water that has been in the ground “for 400 years”.  It is good quality mineral water that passed all tests, he said, but people didn’t like it.

So the answer was to build the recharge system, which is best explained with the diagrams above.  This system uses river water as the tap water source and replaces it, to a limited extent, with the bore water which is fed in with a waterfall just below the intakes for the river water.  The effects of the addition of the bore water on the river water on the river’s ecology are being monitored for two years.

This system isn’t a substitute for a reservoir up river for long-term needs, or for a summer drought situation for which bore water in taps could reappear, but the council doesn’t rate the reservoir as a priority (we do).

Apart from the recharge system, we were shown the workings of the treatment plant: how gunk is removed with carbon, and the addition of chlorine to kill bugs like giardia, as well as the controversial fluoride to safeguard people’s teeth.

The workings of the recharge system are a completely separate issue from the controversial water meters, which we maintain were an expensive waste of money which only added to the cost impost on citizens and ratepayers.

Where water is taken from the river — the still pool before the weir.  We saw a couple of trout swimming in it.  Our guide said that during the May floods, the water level was only about one metre below the steel platform which is just visible on the left.

The pumps that lift the water from the river into the treatment plant.

This shows the bore water tumbling down a waterfall into the river to replace the water that has been taken out from the pool before the weir.  This photo is taken from the steel platform just visible in the other photo.

Those who have followed the stoush reported on the Kapiti Independent News website over the White Ribbon Campaign saga will have observed these comments:

From Dr Kerry Bolton: “There are only four councillors who are not tainted in some manner by bullying, intimidation, false accusations, self-serving manipulation of White Ribbon. They are: Councillors Elliott, David Scott, Gurunathan and Cardiff. ALL the others have shown themselves to be damnable scoundrels, to put it charitably.”

From Cr David Scott: “The mayor, Cr Gaylor and the many spin doctors employed by council are hypocritical. I have served with two mayors and can without doubt say that the current bureaucracy is a spin machine that tries to conveniently forget their misdemeanors.”

In a survey of trust and confidence by the public in different professions published by the NZ Herald last June, local council members rated only 31% — which is even lower than that given to lawyers (43%).  Near the top by comparison, were fire fighters (93%) and ambulance personnel (92%).

What would be the trust and confidence rating for councillors in Kapiti?  At present we rather doubt it would even match that given to used car salesmen.

Some of those who seek election to big city councils may be after prestige and kudos, but you don’t get that in Kapiti.  The salary is only $29,000 for a council member and there are a lot of hours involved for it, not just in meetings and committees, but in reading copious reports prepared by staff.

So why can our councillors not comply with their oath of office:

I declare that I will faithfully and impartially, and according to the best of my skill and judgement, execute and perform in the best interests of the Kapiti Coast District.

These representatives were elected to apply skill and good judgement, exercise impartiality, and show dignity and respect.  If they don’t, and several haven’t, well the ballot box next October may be harsh…