Category Archives: Politics

But Not Building a Better Taradale

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Taradale’s shopping centre upgrade may have had a higher cost than the $3.5m price tag with parking meters scaring customers & retailers away.

I went for a walk through the Taradale Shopping Centre a couple of weeks ago and was quite disappointed with what I saw – Twelve empty shops – yup, a whole dozen.

From what I’ve been told, a mixture of parking meters scaring off potential shoppers and, like in Napier’s CBD, landlords jacking up rents and leases to coincide with the redevelopment have scared off a large number of businesses.

Very few people were around at the time I visited. This was, admittedly, on a Monday or Tuesday afternoon, so perhaps not peak-hour, but still far less activity than I would have expected. In fact, the busiest business I saw was the new funeral home, which had faced a great deal of criticism on opening, but given Taradale’s older demographic I thought was a stroke of business genius on the behalf of its owners.

It reminded me of a column I wrote for Baybuzz over two years ago:

“..The range of shops has sadly shrunken dramatically. Like Napier’s CBD in the late 90’s, going cappuccino crazy following the trends of Parnell and Ponsonby, Taradale has now followed after central Napier. There are around twenty cafés, takeaways, restaurants and bars in the town centre.

Quite a staggering number for such a small area. The only place which out-foods Taradale is neighbouring Greenmeadows shopping centre, whose almost total purpose has become servicing the stomachs of surrounding suburbia.

I have often wondered, considering Taradale’s affluent image, if naming one of its coffee houses “Café Rich” wasn’t a bit of a piss-take. It’s not like you see a “Café DPB” in less well-off shopping areas.

Often viewed as a bit of a retirement village hub, this new fastidious focus on food and frappuccinos makes me think Taradale might be trying to regress into teenage-hood.

Women’s clothing stores, beauty and hair salons are not too far behind Taradale’s massive majority of eateries, making it no longer the most guy-friendly of shopping centres. Once you’ve finished your lunch you will never be short of somewhere to get clipped, waxed, coloured, curled, dressed and varnished. Yes, Taradale is becoming a teenaged girl!

One of the more controversial aspects of Taradale’s redevelopment has been the introduction of parking meters. This is the first time you have ever had to pay for parking in Taradale, but it is one aspect I don’t mind – as the people who shop and park in Taradale the most will be the ones helping pay for the redevelopment. Where the new meters aren’t ruling the roadside roost, a parking warden has been tasked to the town centre to ticket those who out stay their hour-long parking limits. I’m not sure how effective this will be, though. As unless you’re having an extra-long lunch or marathon makeover, its compact size makes spending more than an hour doing what you need to do in Taradale quite hard to do. Or that could just be a guy thing.

With all the additions and changes that have been made to Taradale, one important, legal, part is missing: There are no longer any marked pedestrian crossings over Gloucester Street in the town centre, only raised ‘courtesy crossings’.

My mother-in-law, who regularly shops there, rang up the Napier City Council to query the crossing secession and was told that having the combination of (official) pedestrian and (unofficial) ‘courtesy’ crossings, as Taradale’s former layout did, was too confusing and dangerous for drivers and pedestrians alike (can you say ‘Road Code’?) The raised ‘courtesy’ crossings made cars slow down anyway, so the official ‘zebra lines’ and orange light that legally translate to: “Oi! You in the big, wheeled, powered, metal thing – let the soft, easily squished biped go first” were abolished in the town centre. I emailed the council on this matter, hoping they’d reply and refute or confirm these details, but like a Napier pedestrian attempting to cross an official (or otherwise) pedestrian crossing, I’m still waiting.

Considering the large proportion of families with small children and elderly people who daily shop in Taradale and have to cross the road that bisects the shopping precinct, this has become a major safety concern for many. The Taradale retailers I have spoken to are bearing the brunt of some incensed questioning over this issue.

Despite the fact Taradale’s two ward councillors were re-elected without a single vote in their favour (or candidate standing against them), perhaps this is a matter they should put their locality-based positions to good use for, take notice of their constituents and do something before these crossings end up being accompanied by a cross of a different nature.”

It’s truly amazing how little things have changed in two years. Do you think the council and its representatives have done enough for their ward? Taking a stroll through the heart of their domain, I wouldn’t think so.

Building a Better Napier

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Napier’s pre-1931 earthquake Commercial Hotel, Now no more than a hole in the ground 🙁

We all know the architectural style that has made Napier famous. But it seems to have fostered more than just a little ‘architectural elitism’.

I have a confession to make: I don’t actually mind Napier’s Art Deco architecture. In a way I can’t help but. I’ve lived here all my life, so I have grown up surrounded by it (well, not entirely – until the mid-late 1980’s it was almost all covered up). The thing I detest about it is the imperialism with which the Deco theme, mind-set and all its proponents have smothered practically everything else about the city over the past two decades. I feel Napier’s image, promotion and the central city’s momentum have gone backwards as a result.

Our departing mayor had her heart set on getting “World Heritage Status” for the Art Deco buildings in Napier’s CBD. She was unsuccessful. Had she got it, there would have much back-slapping and bathing in the glory of such an accolade in the Napier City Council chambers. But if the English “Listed Building” system is anything to go by, NCC’s short-sighted success would have seen anyone owning or occupying one of these buildings facing a massive financial and legal struggle if they wanted to do anything more than change a light bulb in said structure.

As it stands, with current earthquake strength guidelines and insurance premiums, many of Napier’s iconic Art Deco buildings face either major renovations to strengthen them or even, heaven forbid, demolition. Many businesses either have relocated or are facing relocation while improvements are made to their current sites and I can’t see their rents / leases going down as a result. This will not help keeping tenants in our CBD, something it has struggled with over recent years.

Now we can’t blame the council solely for this situation. As it’s the building owners and landlords who have been milking their cash-cows for all they’re worth. Major lease and rent increases intended to catch up on the elapsed property boom and cover the recent massive increases in insuring properties have been badly timed to coincide with a major drop in sales and spending, forcing many businesses out of the CBD, or out of business altogether.

Napier has lost a lot of its unique locally-owned and family-run stores as a result of these increased costs. All too often their place gets taken by yet another Australasian chain store, giving people the impression that Emerson Street has become an open-air Westfield’s mall.

While it’s a case of “all hands to the pumps” when it comes to buildings erected immediately after the 1931 earthquake, like the effort put into saving the Art Deco frontages of the buildings that were osmosed into the modern glass and concrete behemoth that is Napier’s new Farmers department store (I do think this made the building look a bit “hodgepodge”, though), pre-1931 buildings like the Commercial Hotel (to be replaced by a modern Art Deco-esque, single storey block of shops) and the 1913 Williams Buildings (which is apparently to be demolished and also turned into a single storey shopping block, but with a carpark on top ffs!) have either fallen to, or are set for the wrecking ball without so much as the blink of an eye, or an “Aww” from our local authority. Oh dear, too expensive, never mind.

Once again, the deterioration of these buildings is the fault of their owners, not the council, but when they put so much money, effort and promotion into saving Art Deco buildings, it seems utter madness, arrogance or ignorance not to try their best to protect or save central Napier buildings, erected before 1931, that actually survived the earthquake!

If you look at the likes of central Wellington or Auckland, you will see an eclectic mix of old and new buildings. Century-old masonry sits happily alongside modern glass and aluminium. Georgian and Gothic low-rise frontages seamlessly mould into modern glass and metal multi-storey office blocks. If the Auckland and Wellington City Councils and the owners of those buildings can preserve the old and integrate it with the new on such major scales, why can’t the Napier City Council and local building owners do the same on a smaller scale?

Why must Napier lose 100 year old heritage buildings, only for poor modern-day interpretations (with roof-top car parks – what a ghastly thought) of an overpowering architectural style 20 years its junior to take their place? It doesn’t seem fair.

Napier City Council must try harder.

Abraham Lincoln for NCC!

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87 years after America’s Declaration of Independence, in a Pennsylvanian field, a tall man in a tall hat stood before a gathering and began a speech which, at the time went barely noticed. It began:

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

We’ve all heard of the Gettysburg Address, or at least its first few sentences. But how many of you have heard or read those first few words and promptly tuned out? I have, until now.

“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honoured dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Pretty amazing, huh? The first time I read those next two paragraphs, I damn near cried. It has to be one of the best, most humble, yet powerful political speeches of all time. When was the last time you heard any politician, never mind the President of the United States, talk themselves down and talk the common man up that much and MEAN IT? Remember, this was in the middle of the American Civil War, the nation was torn in two and over half a million people died.

Reading those words it’s hard to believe that the civil war-winning, slave-freeing, vampire-hunting Lincoln was a Republican, especially when you see the sort of mind-set and policies his “Grand Old Party” have become infamous for today.

With our own local body elections coming up later this year, we have to prepare ourselves for a barrage of far less impressive political addresses. Expect the usual rhetoric, verbal promises that aren’t worth the paper they are written on and loads of “I, I, I, me, Me, ME” “Look at how much (little) we (Mayor Arnott & CEO Taylor/ Mayor Yule) have achieved” self-back-slapping. With the amalgamation debate on-going, we can also expect more of the usual Napier vs. Hastings petty parochialism that has plagued Hawke’s Bay for decades.

I sincerely hope we finally see some major changes in power in Hawke’s Bay in October. The region has been bogged down by the same people in the same positions for far too long. Hawke’s Bay needs someone more like Lincoln and a lot less like the currently entrenched bunch of beurocrats.

Hawke’s Bay deserves far better.

Eleven Score and Seventeen Years Ago

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I’ve been reading Bill Bryson’s excellent (let’s face it EVERYTHING Bryson writes s excellent – the guy should receive whatever the literary version of being canonised is) “Made in America” – looking at what made the “US of A” what it is today, linguistically, mentally, physically and metaphorically. As with most Bryson books, you learn loads of interesting new stuff. In this book I’ve just learned about America’s founding documents, the Declaration of Independence and the forming of the Constitution and the processes that were gone through to get there. It was quite something, considering how long ago they were written, the power of the wording and the morals behind them and that most of the people involved in their creation weren’t bureaucrats or career politicians, but regular, rather brilliant, everyday people.

With tomorrow being the 4th of July, I thought it would be apt to share a few of these words from eleven score and seventeen years ago with you:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Quite a beautiful and inspiring sentiment, isn’t it? But considering at the time it was written slavery was normal practice and women couldn’t vote (and wouldn’t be able to for more than 150 years in some states), it does take quite a chunk out of the “All men are created equal” philosophy and the associated rights.
Even today not everyone in America has the same rights (other than the Miranda variety) and equalities. Consider the fight for gay rights, or a bunch of Texan men thinking they can tell the states’ women what’s best for their bodies. Internationally, it gets far, far worse. In many parts of the world people have even less rights, still.

Despite the stupidity of those who fail to recognise, or intentionally work against such themes and content as in the Declaration’s preamble, at its heart it promotes a far better way for life and thought. We would all be far better off for living by such words.

After all, it was only by working together equally that the United States achieved its Independence.

Wanted: One New Napier Mayor

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Take a look at the contenders for Napier mayor and despair, Napier!

Four current Napier City Councillors make up the majority of those looking to replace long-term Mayor Barbara Arnott in this October’s local body elections. This might not seem too bad to some, as NCC loves to remind us how low our (continual) annual rates increases are and just how little debt the city apparently has (this depends on which figures you look at and how deeply according to some dissenters). But if you look at how far the city has come in the last decade or more (the time since there was any great upheaval in Napier’s governance), you will see we have not gone very far at all. Some may say we’ve actually gone backwards.

So when the same old guard that lauds their revitalization of Marine Parade, after more than 15 years of doing nothing about it (other than mowing the 2km of grass between the now closed (by this same council) Marineland and the Aquarium (can you remember the can-am cars and bumper-boats?)), or “listening to the public” and finally building a sheltered inter-city bus terminal after years of complaint and protest put their hand up to replace their glorious leader after years of compliant silence (this could be explained by the code of conduct each council must sign), you can excuse my cynicism as I cast an opinionated eye upon the contenders:

John “Bertie” Cocking (3 term “at large” councillor): Long-time proponent and icon of Napier’s Art Deco obsession was the first to put his hand up and stand for mayor almost the instant Arnott announced her retirement.
Art Deco has been the obsessive focus for the current council for years. I don’t actually mind the architecture and buildings, but so much focus and money has been poured into it there has been little chance for anything else (especially tourism-wise) being able to get a word in edge-ways that it’s little wonder Napier’s tourism industry has been suffering as we become a one-trick tourism pony.
Cocking’s alter-ego also lent his name and face to the problem-plagued “Bertie’s Buses” which look set to keep costing Napier ratepayers (who, as far as I can tell, never actually got a say on the purchase) long after the council that bought them is voted out.
John is considered to be one of the better financial minds on the NCC, his financial skills are lauded by many. It was this financial nous that got him a place on board of Venture Hawke’s Bay. How is that organisation going these days?
John / Bertie was the second highest poling councillor at the last election, behind the retiring deputy mayor Kathie Furlong, so he must be popular somewhere. But I just can’t trust my council in the hands of anyone who uses a picture like this on one of their election hoardings like in the last election.

Bill Dalton (2 term “at large” councillor) Might well be Hawke’s Bay’s most negative blogger I ‘take one for the team’ occasionally and have a read to see what he’s been complaining about recently. For me, at least, it isn’t inspiring, or elation-inducing reading. As someone who promotes his ideas for cooperation between Napier and Hastings over A Better Hawke’s Bay’s empirical amalgamation plans, he seems overly critical of Hastings people. That can’t be helpful.

Rob Lutter (3 term ward councillor): In the last election nobody voted for Rob, yet he was still elected! Admittedly no one stood against him, but as a Taradale Ward councillor I think he may not be too popular with his ward constituents any more after the upgrade of Taradale’s shopping centre saw the addition of parking meters. Combine that with leases in the shopping centre skyrocketing (not the councils fault, but certainly not helpful) and many shoppers and a number of businesses have been driven out of the village.

Michelle Pyke (1 term “at large” councillor) As the unsuccessful mayoral aspirant in the last election, you would have expected her to be a more vocal, opinionated proponent for change. Instead she has been very quiet (as have all her fellow councillors). The only time I have heard her speak up recently was when defending the council and championing her role as the “voice of the unrepresented”. I don’t know who these “unrepresented” are, or how they’ve gotten along over the last 3 year term, but I’m taking the silence as a bad sign.
If all else fails, she can always go back to offering career and financial advice to lotto winners.

The others:

Stuart McLauchlan
A managing partner with legal firm Langley Twigg, past president of the Hawke’s Bay Chamber of Commerce and current chairman of the economic development agency, Business Hawke’s Bay had signaled his interest in standing for mayor earlier this year too. His youth, knowledge and connections would have been fantastic for the city, but he later decided against standing. As a member of the pro-amalgamation lobby group “A Better Hawke’s Bay” I think he may have had too much of an up-hill battle against an entrenched status quo / anti-amalgamation establishment in Napier.

David Trim
There may yet be hope for Napier, as someone other than a current councillor finally puts their hand up for nomination. Local businessman David Trim has indicated to the local paper that he will be contesting a place either as mayor, or as councillor in October’s local body elections.

Hawke’s Bay Today believes there may yet be at least one other contender for the Napier mayoralty. For the sake of a prosperous, cooperative, diverse and fully represented Napier advancing into the future, I do hope so!

Why The Warehouse Should Form a Political Party!

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I tweeted a thought the other day, wondering if The Warehouse was the Steven Joyce of NZ retail. The Warehouse tweeted back asking what did I mean (awkward!), so I explained that Mr Joyce is considered the “Minister of Everything” for his many and varied portfolios and general “Mr Fix it” role in government and that the Warehouse is the “Retailer of Everything” selling CDs, books, toys, clothes, appliances, plants, food, etc. etc. etc. The Warehouse tweeter seemed happy with my explanation and NZ blogging and Twitter icon Moata Tamaira opined to me, “If only The Warehouse could go into politics.” “Hmmm,” I thought, why not?

Think about it – The Warehouse would be the perfect political party. Its red branding, egalitarian “Where EVERYONE gets a bargain” slogan and work in the community would appeal to socially minded voters, while its massive retailing empire, overseas trading ability and the sheer volume of money that flows through the company (the amount of GST they accumulate each year must be staggering) would appeal to those of a more capitalistic bend.

Too often politicians are criticised for “not living in the real world”, well the Warehouse is certainly part of the real world and has become such a feature of everyday life for New Zealanders that it would be the perfect interface between politics and the public. Go in store to buy a new pair of pants and pick up some shares in a state-owned power company at the same time (Note: I do not know what The Warehouse’s stance is on asset sales, I’m just using it as an example). Buy a DVD and you could also file your tax return at the checkout. Purchase some oil for your car and pay the registration at the same time. Brilliant, eh? Need to talk to your local member for parliament? Look no further than the information kiosk, or attending to the clean up in aisle four – in the Warehouse Political Party “public service” really does mean serving the public!

As Peter Dunne’s (499 people formerly known as) United Future discovered, politics is all about support and membership. This is from where the term “card carrying member” originates. The Warehouse already has financial contributors in the millions. Every day thousands of New Zealanders shop there, that’s a lot of grassroots support. Want to join the Warehouse Political Party? If you have a Warehouse store credit card, you could already be a member!

So there you go. It’s a little over a year to the next general election, the current mob in parliament (on both sides of the chamber) don’t seem to be making any new friends, or keeping many old ones and a gap has opened up with United Future ceasing to have an actual future, or a present for that matter, so it would be the perfect time for a new party to sweep into power and who better to do it than The Warehouse?

The Kids Aren’t All Right

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Attending to the needs of the younger members of its population is all too often overlooked by local and national governments around the world. In the local case of youth and city councils, this appears to certainly be one thing Hastings does better than Napier.

I was a member of the “Napier City Council Youth Forum” in 1995 – a collection of senior students from all Napier’s High Schools and EIT. We got together once a month to discuss the issues facing
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