Opposite the St Andrews Anglican Church and close to the Ngatiawa Road intersection. The electrical box is an obvious candidate for public art treatment.

An at-the-time recently built house which we looked seriously at buying in 2005. Being surrounded by native bush appealed to us, although we can imagine a certain local property businessman being horrified by it.

There have been reports of ghosts in several areas of L.A. City Hall, which dates from 1928; the most famous is a nattily-dressed, old-fashioned gentleman who likes to disrupt City Council meetings and bother officials in the bathrooms.

The KCDC HQ building is probably too recent to have ghosts, but you wonder how certain past and present female staffers in the KCDC would react…

So it says on the below info sheet issued by the council.  Like most trees they look nice, but these are problematic.

The weedbusters site considers the Phoenix palm a weed, and this article on the stuff website states:

Phoenix palm trees with their poisonous stabbing frond spikes are taking a heavy toll on Kiwis.

A search of ACC claim form records for possible phoenix palm spike injuries revealed 644 claims at a cost of $193,029 in 2016. That’s up from 577 claims in 2015 and 622 claims in 2014.

The overall picture is a steady stream of injuries bad enough to need medical attention. Many more injuries must go unreported.

The spikes at the base of the crown of foliage are the problem. They are super sharp and slice into the body effortlessly.

The info sheet does not specify what the replacements will be.

And as usual, we are startled with the amounts the KCDC quotes for cost: $10,000 for the removal.  In contrast, about 4 years ago we arranged the removal of two huge pine trees for people in Wellington for $2,500.

 

Sent to us by a reader:  Obviously, it does not relate to Waikanae or Kapiti, but the Dun Mountain is an important national historically significant place as the location of the country’s first railway, the Dun Mountain Railway opened in 1863.

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Notice of Formal Complaint

This is a Formal Complaint to the NELSON CITY COUNCIL and Rachel Reece, acting as the Mayor of Nelson, and as the woman, and Patrick Dougherty, acting as the CEO of the Nelson Corporate Council, and as the man, and Alec Louverdis, acting as Group Manager Infrastructure, and as the man, and Tim Skinner, acting as Nelson Chair of Sport and Recreation Committee, and as the man and Stuart Walker, acting as Chair of Works and Infrastructure, and as the man.

Claim of Harm

Claim of Liability

Notice of Requirement

This Formal Complaint is in regards to the on-going damage and the lack of maintenance being done to the Historic Nelson Dun Mountain Tramway and Trail, that is likely a result of poor management and of not heeding the advice of Geo-tech Professionals or the warnings from the Public of Nelson, who are the rightful owners of the Historic Nelson Dun Mt Tramway, that is currently in trust to the NELSON CITY COUNCIL and representatives thereof.

Significant Harm has been done to this publicly owned historic asset via slips caused by the BWST fence and bench being cut in too close and effectively undermining the Historic Dun Mt Tramway, creating significant Liability and a Serious Fidicuary Breach of Public Trust.

A suitable Remedy would be for the Council and representatives thereof to use its liability insurance or similar insurance provision to ensure the Historic Dun Mt Tramway is restored to a permanent status and its original width, or ensuring that the trust responsible and also potentially liable- known as the BWST, use their liability insurance or similar provisional funding for the required repair and proper restoration of the Historic Nelson Dun Mountain Tramway.

Also required is the competent assessing of the section of the Nelson Historic Dun Mt Tramway from 2nd house down to Betsy Eyre Reserve for maintenance, and performing the required maintenance, and also the installation of the Cawthron Park sign, as promised! — in 1913 when the original Cawthron Park contract was accepted by the Mayor and Councillors of Nelson, this can be confirmed by the NCC historic Council minutes.

Also required is the competent assessing of the section of the Nelson Historic Dun Mt Trail in the Upper Maitai Valley that has a slip closing it, this is between the Maitai Reservoir and Smiths Ford area, and performing the required maintenance that will include the removal of the slip and the reinstatement of the trail.

More signs highlighting that this Historic Dun Mt Tramway and Trail is a shared Walkway and Trail for both walkers and cyclists is also required for safety reasons.

I also require on-going contact in regards to this matter, and a SR number or similar complaint ID from the NCC, and also a timeframe of the required maintenance and repairs to the Nelson Historic Dun Mountain Tramway and Trail both in the Brook and Maitai Valleys.

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more:

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The Chief Executive Officer, 
Nelson City Council

Saturday, 3 November 2018

Sir, 

I wish to make formal complaint, both in my own proper person and as Chair of the Brook Valley Community Group Incorporated. Copies of this complaint will be distributed electronically. 

We prepared objections to proposals presented by Council, and were heard on Thursday 1 November at the chambers. It had already become evident that there was to be no independent chair of the hearing panel of three councilors. This decision was made on the fly by the Mayor at the full Council meeting in September. That decision is the first subject of complaint. This was not the procedure in the previous round of objections to these proposals. No justification has been advanced for the change. 

The necessity for independence, in at least the chair of a panel hearing objections to a proposal, was amply demonstrated on Thursday. Cr. Fulton, chosen by the panel to chair, fully demonstrated her considerable bias. She is well-known to be committed to the Sanctuary Trust project, the principal if not only beneficiary of the proposed changes in classification of land and road stoppage. She failed to declare her conflict of interest. 

She, and other panel members appeared to be, astonishingly, entirely ignorant of their proper role in hearing objections under the Reserves Act. In this, they were encouraged by the fact that submissions had been called for publicly, not objections, as was proper, and as was done the last time around. They did not know there to be any difference in law between these terms. This administrative alteration in public notification introduced several new errors. 

First, it ignored the proper responsibility of the Council as regulatory body to comply with the requirements under sections 23 and 24 of the Reserves Act 1977. It treated the matters under consideration as if they were subject to a process of ordinary submission, say to a Plan, which is not the case. 

As a result, and secondly, submissions were solicited which were in support of the proposals, including from the Brook Waimarama Sanctuary Trust. These were heard as if they had equal standing at this hearing of objections. Such submissions in support of proposals have in fact no standing at such a hearing. They should not have been solicited and they should not have been heard. 

In respect of Cr. Fulton’s actions as Chair, thirdly, the decision appeared to encourage her to attempt to reconcile objectors to the proposals. Specifically, I was asked (among others) as to whether it was possible that we might work together in the context of a proposed “Comprehensive Development Plan”, apparently to further an intention to recommend that a division be made between Recreation Reserve land and Local Purposes reserve, to enable the continued expansion of the Sanctuary Trust’s area of leased (and intended management) control. 

Clearly, it does need to be said that this was and is not the proper function of the chair of a panel formally established for the statutory purpose of hearing objections, having no power of decision, only to recommend. 

I take personal objection to the expression she employed that she “heard (my) frustration”. It was not her business to remark upon my emotional state. I have no contract with her for counselling. Her patronizing remark arose from a covert intent to minimize and deflect the force of argument presented to the panel, as if this were just another ‘grumpy old man’- a phrase I am told recently employed by the Deputy Mayor- requiring placation by an indulgent mummy. 

On the contrary, public anger is legitimate, well-founded and further supported by her denial of any unlawfulness in preceding actions of Council, at which to be quite rightly angered. There are in fact prodigious reasons, documented perhaps not fully enough in the extensive submissions made. These reasons remain completely unaddressed by Council. I ask you, once again, and as an example, to consider the fact that the Sanctuary Trust were unlawfully allowed to occupy Recreation Reserve, a fact known to and advised against by your own officers. 

I take leave to doubt that any member of the panel had made themselves aware of their proper responsibility under the Reserves Act. These are extremely serious matters. The alienation of public land for private purposes and the stopping of public roads are not light subjects for consideration. Our objections were treated politely, but as trivia. This is entirely inappropriate in our representatives on the regulatory body and, equally, unacceptable. 

There is now a long, long, list of sound reasons for complaint about the actions of the Nelson City Council. As you are perfectly aware, the previous Chief Executive Officer concealed from the elected members, and of course the public who paid her, the opinion of the Environment Court that the Nelson City Council had acted ultra vires in respect of an attempt to reclassify this land as Local Purposes (Recreation). No such classification can exist, and therefore it is not possible for Council now to propose to reclassify from it. This lack of understanding is simple incompetence at best. At worst, fraud. That we have been denied access to this information despite an Official Information request, on the grounds of cost, is a further grave concern. 

You will find, sir, that there are a great many residents and ratepayers of Nelson who are very angry as to the manner in which public affairs are being conducted. You have staff on your payroll who are cordially and widely detested for the disdain with which they have treated the public and for their many appalling historic and current instances of mismanagement of public assets. This present situation is only one such. 

It might be that you are able to take some ameliorative action in respect of this travesty of a hearing. I hope so. I am not a litigious man, and as Chair of a community group, I am reluctant to engage us in further actions against the City Council. However, it is my clear responsibility to present an option we may be impelled to take, in the absence of adequate procedures being followed by you to address our concerns. 

In the event that these proceedings continue with recommendations made to Council that are already signaled to be grossly inadequate, be aware that I intend in my own proper person to institute legal proceedings against the Nelson City Council and yourself as its Chief Executive Officer. I shall ask the Brook Valley Community Group (Incorporated) and others acting as individuals, whether they would wish to join me in such proceedings. 

Yours truly, 

Christopher St Johanser
M.Phil., M.A. 
Chair
Brook Valley Community Group Incorporated. 

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and more:

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ALERT! Please be advised we have commenced fresh legal action. Here is a letter transmitted today from Sue Grey, together with a pdf document, attached. Distribute widely, please. This has global significance, and that is not hyperbole.

Sue says to Mr Dougherty, CEO of Nelson City Council:

Please find attached urgent correspondence identifying legal concerns and risks and seeking information about the process the Council is currently engaged in seeking to reclassify the legal status of the Brook Reserve.

I am happy to provide copies of the relevant extracts from the Reserves Act if that would assist.

I would be grateful if you would please acknowledge receipt by reply email and advise when Mr St Johanser and I can expect to receive the requested information and/or a suitable time early next week for me to visit the Council to inspect the relevant files.

Thank you and regards

Sue Grey LLB(Hons), BSc, RSHDipPHI

When does government (including local council) information become propaganda? When it becomes extravagant, distorted, inaccurate and straight-out untrue, including lying by omission?

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by Jon Rappoport

One type of mind control involves defeating logic as a method of thinking.

Modern formulations of basic logic begin with the statement: You can’t have A and not-A. Which is a way of saying contradictions are unacceptable.

So it’s no surprise that mind control attempts to introduce contradictions into rational processes.

You see this in propaganda.

For example: People who are vaccinated are in danger from those who are unvaccinated. (“Keep your unvaccinated child away from my vaccinated child.”)

There is a concealed contradiction here. You can see it by merely defining (according to conventional terms) the meaning of “vaccinated.”

It means “immune,” “protected from contracting the disease targeted by the vaccine.”

But if the vaccinated person is protected and immune, then coming into contact with an unvaccinated person will bring no danger.

Therefore, the notion that vaccinated people are A) protected but not-A) in danger is absurd, a contradiction.

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The easiest way to defeat logic is through deficient education. Never teach logic. Ignore it. Instead, teach specific values. Teach anything except logic. Don’t teach children how to spot contradictions.

A deficient education plus tons of ceaseless propaganda equals mind control.

Logic is a significant problem for people who want a closed and unfree society. Teaching logic tends to produce sharp and independent minds.

Logic produces personal power.

Here is another example of non-logic: A ballot initiative passed by the voters of Maui County is illegal, because it set up a new law regarding commercial agriculture, when in fact commercial agriculture is regulated by state and federal laws, which trump county laws.

There are several ways of attacking this proposition, but the most basic way is:

The ballot initiative was not aimed at commercial agriculture. It called for a moratorium on all Monsanto/Dow experiments using non-commercial GMOs.

In what has become a federal court case, the judge and the lawyers for Dow/Monsanto are proceeding from a false basic premise.

Of course, the failure in this case is a willful ignoring of the facts. The argument is: A is B. No it isn’t. A is A.

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There are a number of arguments afloat these days which proceed this way:

“The science concerning ABC is settled.”

“’Settled’ means ‘true.’”

“Therefore the science concerning ABC is true.”

However, on closer inspection, “settled” means “there is a consensus among officially favored scientists.”

Science doesn’t operate according to what officially favored scientists claim. It doesn’t operate according to consensus at all. It operates according to what is true and valid—and the best way to ascertain that is through the broadest possible analysis accomplished by a wide variety of independent researchers, who attempt to replicate prior experimental results.

Even then, there is always room for reasoned dissent.

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There is much, much more I could write about logic. The issues I raise in this article are basic and should be addressed in every high school, in great detail, with many illustrations.

For instance: what are the full tacit implications of the statement found at the end of every television drug ad—“ask your doctor if X is right for you.”

For instance (at a more sophisticated level): when the press reports a new outbreak of disease, claiming it is caused by a particular virus…how was that assertion determined? On what grounds do scientists say they have found the virus that causes the disease?

I ran headlong into that one while writing my first book, AIDS Inc.: Scandal of the Century, and the further I investigated HIV as “the cause of AIDS,” the more I was stunned by the lack of logic present in the argument.

Logic is a sword.

Learning its many uses, while still young, creates formidable students and citizens.

Propaganda is the art of overwhelming logic.

It works, when the mind is unprepared.

Just as impressive as the art in Jan Waterfield’s studio at 25 Huia Street is the entrance to it.  The gateway is inspired by American Indian themes.

Jan is known for her fantasy NZ bird themes and for masks: examples on her Facebook page, and in a couple of previous posts on here.

The Department of Conservation is increasingly resorting to media releases claiming its field workers are being threatened and harassed by 1080 opponents. Newshub/TV3 had another such item last Friday evening. But it seems that these claims are accepted at face value by reporters and no investigation of their accuracy gets done.

Anti-1080 campaigner Carol Sawyer says an Official Information Act response reveals false claims from DoC:

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Can we expect our Government agencies like the New Zealand Department of Conservation (DoC) to tell us the truth? Can we at least expect them NOT to blatantly and shamelessly lie?

Well apparently, no.

Over the past year, there have been increasing claims in the media from people like Lou Sanson, Director-General of the DoC and Nicola Toki, DoC’s ‘Threatened Species Ambassador’, that ‘anti-1080 activists are dangerously out of control’, ‘have gone feral’ and even ‘are repeatedly making death threats to DoC staff’.

On 31 August this year, we exposed the truth about these lies. We reported the response to an Official Information Act to the New Zealand Police, which asked ‘exactly HOW MANY threats of violence towards DoC staff had been recorded from so-called ‘anti-1080 activists in the past 2 years?’ and perhaps more importantly, ‘how many of these were being upheld?

The answer, back then, was six. Between March 2016 and March 2018 there were a total of only six reports of threats to NZ Police, of which, ZERO were being progressed to prosecution. Nil prosecutions. Surprise, surprise!

So since then, from March up to October 2018, how many MORE threats to DoC do you think have been reported to the Police? After all, there was (according to TVNZ in Sept) a “sharp rise in threats to DoC staff”.

Numerous media articles have attempted to alarm the public about the ‘dangers’ of ‘anti-1080 activists’. Then there was the commencement of a costly contract with the private security firm, Thompson and Clark (April 2018). Journalists like Tom O’Connor writing opinion pieces with headlines like ‘ Anti-1080 protesters’ threats to human life inexcusable’…..

THREE.

Yes, that’s right, since March 2018 there has been an ‘explosion’ of the numbers of threats to….um, the same, on average, as the previous two years.

Whether any of these 3 alleged threats will progress to a prosecution, remains to be seen. But if previously reported incidents are anything to go by (e.g. a threatening phone call, and a note left on a DoC vehicle) we doubt it very much.

We need to call out DoC about their constant and tiresome Fake News. And we need to make the media accountable for perpetuating their lies [there is a similar need in regard to the Cr David Scott case — Eds]. We need to ask for more evidence whenever DoC make a claim; they are simply untrustworthy.

Some examples of recent Fake News articles below.

“Southern police have also revealed they are investigating several threats made last year to sabotage 1080 operations, including one involving the setting of man traps. Department of Conservation (Doc) operations director southern South Island Aaron Fleming said in recent months there had been an increase in threats and harassment to Doc staff and contractors nationwide, including eight in Otago and Southland.” (Otago Daily Times, 6 October 2018)

“There are fears for the safety of conservation workers and contractors after recent attacks on their vehicles. In three instances wheel nuts on the vehicles were loosened in acts believed to be connected to protests over the Conservation Department’s use of 1080 poison for pest management. In the most serious case a contractor avoided injury when a wheel came off while he was driving, after its nuts had been loosened. DOC director-general Lou Sanson said toxic bait had been put in a staff letterbox and he had also seen other threatening posts on Facebook recently.” (Radio NZ, 29 September 2017)

“DOC appalled at latest 1080 threats to staff: The Department of Conservation (DOC) confirms that it has asked New Zealand Police to investigate after receiving a second threatening letter from an anti-1080 protestor in Taranaki. The aggressive letter intensifies threats against DOC staff and claims more sika deer will be released unless DOC stops its use of 1080 to control predators.” (Scoop, 5 December 2017)

“Sharp rise in threats to DOC as anti 1080 protesters hold mass demonstrations” TVNZ One News, September 2018

DoC said the intelligence gathering was necessary because of threats made by anti-1080 activists who in some cases had threatened to shoot down helicopters. “They’ve threatened to kill our staff and their families, we’ve had physical confrontation, and we’ve had instances of tampering with vehicles, loosening wheel nuts. “So we needed a specialist security company to help us with that because we just don’t have the resources or expertise,” Mr Maher said. Threats are collated and assessed by Thompson and Clark as to whether they could likely be carried out. If the risk is high they are forwarded onto police. (Radio New Zealand Checkpoint: DOC Using Thompson and Clarke to monitor anti-1080 activists, 23 April 2018)

Department of Conservation staff are facing a torrent of online threats and abuse following a recent spike in anti-1080 protest This is having a consequence for frontline DOC staff, Mrs Toki said incidents of threats and abuse in August were significantly higher than usual. “We had eight incidents in just one month alone where staff were physically confronted, abused or harassed and then we had seven abusive phone calls and emails” She said in addition to that there were countless harassment threats and abuse via social media which were followed up with Netsafe and the police. (Radio New Zealand, 18 September 2018)

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