In Wellington colours!  This was seen this morning in Paraparaumu Beach, presumably it will be one of the cars in the show on Sunday (see earlier).

the Expressway will have its own crossing of the Otaki River, making three with the railway and the existing SH1.

In the south, work on the (very) long proposed Transmission Gully Expressway has been in progress for a year now and will be experienced at each end for another three years; there will be major work coming where it joins the existing SH1.

In the north, at the end of November the government announced tenders for the $330 million Peka Peka to Otaki Expressway, or in the jargon, PP2O.  A completion date of this hasn’t been stated, but as the route is easy may be only be another 3 years also.

Peka Peka is both the north limit of the Waikanae Ward on the KCDC and the Capital & Coast DHB; but it is still the Kapiti Coast until you get north of Otaki, about 10 km further.  Just like Waikanae, the Otaki township will be bypassed by the Expressway.

Thus when both projects are complete, motorists will be able to drive at 100 km/h all the way from Wellington to just north of Otaki (about 72 km) without experiencing any of the Kapiti townships.

PP2O should boost the status of Otaki as a dormitory town for Wellington workers — and to be frank, it’s where a lot of Waikanae people would prefer residential development than the major subdivisons in Waikanae.

Whether PP2O will boost the Otaki economy is any other way is debatable: it depends on whether Otaki can develop visitor attractions; something for Cr Cootes and his Community Board to work on.

This is the NZTA website on PP2O; it now includes detailed plans in pdf form which were uploaded last month.

It’s your opportunity to see the new council in action on standard issues.  The agenda and supporting documents are available for download on this webpage.

We’ve given more thought to Salima Padamsey’s statement (Monday’s post), and think that the answer is a change of wording for “criticizing elected members”.

If one of us was the Chair of a meeting and someone like Mrs Sue Smith or her husband Mr Mitchell wanted to speak, with their reputations for aggression (towards Michael Scott in particular, but also towards us) we would be nervous, too.

We suggest that “criticizing” be replaced with “showing aggression, disrespect or discourtesy to”.

We mentioned in June last year that the meter on the pipe serving us and our closest neighbour was leaking and as a result the council had to dig a trench across the street to fix things.

To add insult to injury we next found ourselves being billed for 5 times the amount of water we had actually used.

Our letter to the KCDC and their reply speak for themselves.

Is there an apology for their stuff-ups?  Of course not.  At least, however, they recognize they were in the wrong, which is more than can be said for some people.

If this sort of thing has happened to us, it must be happening to others, too — we thus recommend you closely examine each and every invoice you get from the KCDC, until these ridiculous meters are disestablished.

It was being being transported on a truck trailer, of course. Most such clearances are 4.3 metres, one assumes that this trucker was unaware of that.

A truck carrying a boat on its trailer became lodged under a railway bridge on State Highway 1 in Waikanae on Monday evening.

The truck and boat were wedged in a position that impeded both north and southbound lanes shortly after 8pm.

It is not the first time the bridge, thought to be 4.92 metres high, has caught out motorists.

In 2012 a truck driver carrying a large B-train slammed into the rail bridge causing a three truck pile-up

Full stuff article

for classic car fans, it’s a 1950 Chevrolet

A United Kingdom, currently screening at the Shoreline in Waikanae, should appeal to those interested in the machinations of politicians and diplomats.

It deals with the events affecting Bechuanaland (now Botswana) — then a British protectorate — in the late 1940s when its Prince, Seretse Khama, soon to be King, falls for and marries an Englishwoman while in London.  Racial segregation was a firmly entrenched attitude at the time and it didn’t go down well with either’s family.  The African situation was of major concern to the British government whose empire was beginning to disintegrate. Opposition to a black king with a white queen was threatening more disintegration, not just in Bechuanaland, but at the bottom of Africa with the neighbouring countries of South Africa, South West Africa (Namibia) and Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) all in the process of fortifying white supremacist rule.

Both the Labour government of Clement Atlee and the Conservatives of Winston Churchill wanted the couple removed from the country and engaged in various attempts to do that. Ultimately, Churchill banishes him from the country.

Alistair Canning, the British career diplomat and government representative of Southern Africa is akin to Dougherty in Kapiti, albeit more suave and less tempestuous.

Recommended! 🙂

The 2016 Kapiti local government elections are now over. This article reflects on the system of electoral donations that candidates may receive for their electoral campaigns.

Donations are a type of gift. The root word for gift in ancient German and Greek means both gift (as in English) — and poison. This is no coincidence based on the obligatory nature of reciprocity of a gift (or in ancient times, the threat of harm that was believed to befall a recipient who failed to reciprocate).

The gift places the recipient in a position of debt; owing a favour, being obliged to reciprocate. The gift in fact, can poison the relationship, moving the balance from one of neutrality and evenness, to one of an obligation to the donor.

Translating this principle to Kapiti local government politics we see that two sitting councillors received gift or donations for their electioneering campaigns. Councillor Angela Buswell received a total of $9,300 and Mayor Guru $11,000.

Analysing these totals Councillor Buswell received $7,500 from her mother and $1,800 from a fund raising event where 40 tickets were sold at $45 each. In terms of influencing Ms Buswell’s neutrality and impartiality as a Councillor, no serious problems seem apparent. Obvious. We all have bias and partiality towards our parents and 40 donations of $45 is not going to unduly poison a person’s natural neutral reciprocity towards those forty people.

With Mayor Krisnasamy, this is another kettle of fish. He received three donations totalling $13,000–quite a large sum in Kapiti local government politics. Gillian Thomas donated $4,000, Tony Gan $4,000 and Don Little $5,000. These generous gifts may be seen to disturb the healthy balance of neutrality and equality with the donors. When in a position of having received a favour, a subconscious obligation having to return the favour is created.

The author is not suggesting any improper or incorrect influence. Rather, the current system allows for donations to interfere with the healthy balance of even-handedness, neutrality and impartiality, factors essential for open and fair democracy.

What’s the answer? End the current system that allows for political donations.

Source:

Guy Burns

Deputy Chair, Raumati/Paraparaumu Community Board

89 Leinster Avenue, Raumati South

04 9040789, 021 2624645

We’re relaxed about donations to candidates — as long as they are reported.  Readers will remember the fuss that resulted from then Auckland mayor John Banks reporting a $50,000 campaign donation as ‘anonymous’ when he knew the source (Kim Dotcom). The issue of ‘donations’ (read bribes and backhanders) while in office is something else again. — [Eds]