Media release from the council:

The recent upgrade to Kāpiti Coast District Council’s animal shelter is enabling the Public Spaces and Animal Management team to provide a greater standard of care to animals who come into their care.

The renewal project included improvements to the shelter’s drainage, heating and insulation, housing and workspace in the existing enclosures. It also included the creation of a new space for veterinarian treatment, improved access and safety for arriving and departing animals, and an upgrade to fencing to prevent escape.

Jacquie Muir, Environmental Standards Manager, said the welfare of the animals was the catalyst for the renewal project.

“To meet the Code of Welfare of Temporary Housing of Companion Animals, guidelines and standards which sit under the Animal Welfare Act 1999, we needed to make improvements to the Shelter.

“We worked closely with a local architect designer and contractors to create a space that is truly a home away from home for the animals who come into our care. In fact, sadly for some of the animals we manage, it will be a great improvement.

“As part of the design process we got some great ideas from other agencies, like rolling pipes running horizontally along the top of the fence preventing dogs from leveraging themselves over the fence and escaping.  We even considered the dogs when choosing the paint colours, we went with colours that are bright for us – but perfect for them, due to their limited colour perception.

“The shelter is now safer for our Public Spaces and Animal Management Officers with the addition of adjustable containment cages to help them manage aggressive animals in a way that is comfortable for both the animal and Officer. We also improved access to the shelter so officers are able to transport dogs in and out of the shelter safely, and they have the ability to feed dogs without entering the cage.

Lee Greedus, Team Leader–Public Spaces & Animal Management Officer, says that the team are now even better equipped to look after the 300 plus animals who come through the shelter each year.

“Our Officers are committed to ensuring the best outcomes for the animals that come into our care. While they’re with us, we treat them as our own, we make sure the dogs are exercised, we walk them and let them play in the large outdoor areas with ropes, balls and platforms to jump from. We also now have a bath and vet area where we can clean dogs and administer worming and flea treatments if we need to.

“We make sure the animals are kept warm or cool – depending on the season, and we keep them fed and well-watered. We get to know and understand the animals fairly quickly and they get to know us too.

“While most dog owners love their dogs dearly, they’re not always aware of their responsibilities or the level of care required to properly care for a dog,” said Mr Greedus.  It’s part of our job to investigate complaints and proactively promote the welfare, care and control of dogs in our communities.

“Unfortunately the reality is that there will always be a need for an animal shelter, hopefully our proactive efforts will reduce the need over time, but in the meantime, the animals that come into our temporary care will always be comfortable and well cared for.”

Take a tour of the new Kāpiti Animal Shelter:

When Jacinda Ardern gave Iain Lees-Galloway his marching orders for an inappropriate relationship with a staffer she set a very low bar for getting the sack.

Paula Bennett lowered the bar as well by using her own MPs and staffers to bury a wayward MP. I know many in National wish she’d never gone there.

Since the bar is so low we may as well dive right on into the muck.

As I said yesterday, I bet there are many MPs quaking in their boots that they will be next.

If I were a betting man then I’d wager a feed at Taco Belle that some MPs and Ministers who have given more than the glad eye to staff are very nervous indeed.

Especially those who have used the guise of assisting campaigns in The Bay as a reason to run a length up friends of the candidate, slayed the electorate office ladies, given the EA a good seeing to, or asked the accountant to inspect more than the books, so to speak.

You see, I’m not in the Press Gallery, and I have no allegiance to anyone. I do however have two eyes and two ears and I’ve been sitting quietly hoovering up information.

So, let’s have a little poll so see who readers think will be next to go.

Full article including the poll

As Roger Childs says, Jacinda needs to be careful, because if you lift the lid off the parliamentary behaviour pot you’ll find that plenty of affairs and illicit relationships from all parties and the press gallery will crawl out. –Eds

“The assumption that we build a gateway and numbers will increase by 300% is absurd and shows an extreme lack of commercial acumen”. —Mr Glen Cooper, CEO of Kapiti Island Eco concerning Kapiti Coast District Council’s in-house report seeking to justify Guru’s gateway.

A project that doesn’t stack up

By Roger Childs

The proposal for an expensive check-in centre for people heading for Kapiti Island fails on many counts. 

• It is based on unrealistic estimates of future visitors: from 15,000 to 58,000
• It is likely to put one of the tour companies out of business. 
• It requires increases in fees for Island visits — a 25% increase for adults, 50% for children
• There hasn’t been viable provision made for extra parking. 
• It lacks public support and has not gone through the democratic process of allowing submissions. 
• Kapiti ratepayers are likely to end up subsidizing the project indefinitely.

The millions proposed for erecting the gateway would be much better spent on building the much-needed Waikanae Library which would have far more visitors in a year than the wildest projections for future Kapiti Island trippers. 

Little public support and legal misrepresentation

Contract law says there is fraudulent misrepresentation where there is the act of hiding a material fact which, if known to the other party, could have significantly altered the basis of a deal, or transaction writes retired lawyer Christopher Ruthe. DOC knew that increasing fees would drive visitors away. Yet it told KCDC that visitor numbers would treble even with massive fee hikes. 

This material fact was not mentioned to Councillors, or the PGF. So fraudulent misrepresentation has occurred.

Two polls (1350 people) taken locally showed 70% and 72% opposition to the Gateway project. So it is hardly surprising that the proposal was rushed through council without the normal submissions process. Only Councillors Compton, Halliday and Randall had the guts to vote against it.  For their principled stance they were denigrated as “naysayers” by the Mayor.

The proposal went on the Eugenie Sage Minister of Conservation who gave it the big tick for it to proceed to the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) for consideration. If it’s such a great idea why is the Department of Conservation not wanting to pay a cent towards it?

The legal misrepresentation relates to the proven negative effect of the cost of trips to the Island.  Wellington’s Zealandia learned the hard way. It was a loss maker until admission fees were dropped. It proved visitors to tourist attractions are very sensitive to price increases. In 2014 Minister of Conservation, Nick Smith responded to a fall in traffic to Kapiti Island by setting up an independent review.  It found price increases had caused the dramatic fall in visitor numbers.  The Minister ordered the reduction of the adult fee from $28.75 to $10 and making it free for children. Not surprisingly, the visitor number went up. 

Unrealistic visitor estimates and proposed fee increases

The Kapiti Island Gateway Proposal postulates that visitor numbers will increase from 15,000 (in 2019) to 30,000 in 5 years and ultimately to 58,000 by 2030!

The Project also proposes increasing Kapiti Island trip fees by 25% for adults and 50% for children, which may well result in tourist numbers dropping. That outcome would see Kapiti ratepayers having to underwrite Guru’s white elephant for many years to come.

In the famous Shelley poem these lines appear: 

My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

The Mayor wants a “work” to be remembered by: Guru’s Gateway to Kapiti Island — the Taj Mahal of the South Pacific.  Could his Ozymandias complex be satisfied by calling a new public facility in Waikanae ‘The Gurunathan Library’? His ego would be massaged and appropriately soothed. More importantly, residents and ratepayers would benefit. The Gateway only benefits out of town visitors, who pay no rates. [With the necessary fee increase in the fares, they wouldn’t benefit either. —Eds]

Meanwhile back in Paraparaumu Beach, why not build a small extension to the Kapiti Boating Club, beside where visitors to the Island board their boats, so the bio-security checks can be carried out under cover?

Says Louis Houlbrooke of the Taxpayers Union: “A collaboration between five – yes, five – different government agencies has resulted in an ad campaign so vague and unfocused that it is impossible to know what is being advertised.

“With borders closed for the foreseeable future, this campaign doesn’t pass muster as a tourism initiative. It doesn’t showcase any New Zealand products or educational providers. In fact, the only business we recognised in the video was the taxpayer-subsidised Rocket Lab!”

This is a final notice for the first Annual General Meeting of the Federation of Ratepayer Associations of New Zealand Incorporated being held from 12.30 — 5 p.m. on Saturday 25 July 2020 [tomorrow]

in ‘The Den’ at the Massey Community Hall, corner Don Buck Road and Redhills Road, Massey, West Auckland.

If a representative of your Association would like to participate using  Zoom video-conferencing, you can join by following this link :

https://us04web.zoom.us/j/74567792926?pwd=dTlvaG90NW9kejZqY0ozYTUxNEZldz09
Meeting ID: 745 6779 2926   Passcode: 465405

Download Zoom here  More about Zoom

All relevant information, links and attachments are available on our 2020 AGM page.

Please let us know if you have any ‘other matters’ to add to the Agenda,

The minutes of last year’s meeting,

To read more about the Federation click here

Currently our committee consists of:

Chairman : John Riddell  ph. 0274779750, 319B Royal Road, Massey, Auckland 0614

Secretary : Alan Preston : 4 Insley Street, Mangawhai 0505 Tel 02102377242  or 09 4315389 : ratepayersandresidents@gmail.com

 Treasurer : Alec Cox : Kerikeri :  albico.one@gmail.com,  (stepping down)

Committee :

• • Mark Kilgour  : Hamilton
  • Jane Johnston : Paihia/Kerikeri
  • George Belling : Hamilton
  • Jacques Windell: Tauramanui

Nomination and Membership forms are attached at the bottom of the 2020 AGM page.

They can be sent back to us by e-mail at: ratepayersandresidents@gmail.com or by post to 319b Royal Road, Massey, Auckland, 0614, New Zealand

Membership fees can be paid at the AGM or no later than 3 months after the AGM via our bank account

Thank you for your support

Alan Preston

Interim Secretary for the Federation of Ratepayer Associations of New Zealand.
Email — ratepayersandresidents@gmail.com
Mobile : 02102377242

This is found near the west end of Weggery Drive, between the street and the river bank and was begun by a pair of locals in 2016.  Despite setbacks caused by a vandal (caught in August last year) the plant growth has transformed this piece of public space.

Sue Lusk posted the below information on the Destination Waikanae Facebook page in May last year:

When Julian and John were told, “you’ll never get anything to grow on this ugly eroding sandbank” down in the Weggery Reserve in 2016, they decided to ignore that advice and and have developed something truly extraordinary!

They have been planting and weeding and mulching, collecting horse manure, and buying and sourcing native plants for four years now — some plants coming from KCDC and generous locals like Gus Evans, some they buy themselves (and sadly sometimes lose to vandalism) but nearly all have flourished and created a new ecosystem on this once barren bank.

And as the fast-growing natives are forming a protective canopy, they have started to plant nikaus, tree fuchsias, kohekohe, even kaka beak (what else did you tell me, Julian and John?) to ensure that this is a reserve that flourishes for generations.

Next to the path to the river you’ll also see a small planting in amongst the massive gorse bushes around the bases of the pine trees – John and Julian have done this to show that, once the native trees and shrubs are mature enough, they will form a canopy that prevents the gorse from getting enough light to survive. Wouldn’t it be amazing for KCDC to not have to keep spraying the gorse in the future because native plants have taken over…

Trees are our world’s pumping lungs, and Julian and John have shown – along with groups like the Waikanae Estuary Care Group, the Friends of the Waikanae River, the Edgewater Care Group, Brent Buckler of Greater Wellington (whose planting by the Waikanae River bridges is looking so healthy too!) — that barren and weed-choked land can regenerate with passionate locals working together.

Responding to Wellington City Council’s decision to increase rates by 5.1%, New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says:

“A 5.1% rate hike far exceeds the rate of inflation and would be painful in any year. The fact the Council has proceeded with this plan during a literal pandemic beggars belief. It’s even worse than Auckland’s 3.5% hike.”

“Unlike income taxes, council rates are levied on each household regardless of that household’s ability to pay. Wellington families that lose livelihoods as a result of the economic downturn would struggle to pay rates even at existing levels. Hiking rates adds salt to the wound.”

“The rate hike is partially the result of a series of botched property projects, from the Town Hall, to the new convention centre and the library. But there are also ongoing operational expenses that should have been subject to urgent review. For example, the Council pays 264 staff salaries higher than $100,000. Instead of making significant adjustments to staff salaries, Councillors have chosen to fob costs onto struggling ratepayers.”

That’s still down on what the KCDC was planning to hike our rates by — 5.7% Districtwide which would have been about 6.5% for Waikanae people — before councilors had second thoughts with the impact of Lockdown and Waikanae people now have a 3.2% average increase. –Eds