Question: Does it truly matter if a City / Regional / District councillor wears a tie or not?

Answer: No!

Hawke’s Bay’s local authorities saw reasonable levels of change thanks to the recent elections. Not great, but reasonable.

Voters elected new councillors who they hoped would ‘stick their necks out’ on issues, rather than leave them as the last thing the public saw just above the sand (or other orifaces).

They voted in people whose necks could look left and right to see both sides of an issue. Look forwards to guide us into the future and backwards to help us avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, rather than staring in the same old direction that habit, instruction or sycophancy had seized their predecessors’.

So why has such a big deal being made in local media about what three male regional councillors do or do not place around their aforementioned cervical appendage?

I don’t care what our councillors wear or how they wear it. I care about what they DO as councillors for my city and for my region.

The publicised actions, attitude and decisions of Regional Council Chairman Wilson over recent years have given me little reason to have any faith in him as a representative of the Hawke’s Bay region, let alone as any form of men’s style guru. He should leave that to the experts – Chairman Ralph Lauren and Councillor Tom Ford, perhaps.

I wish the likes of Hawke’s Bay Today would get their focus and reporting back on the matters that have an actual bearing on the present and future of our great region.

Far bigger, more important issues currently hang around Hawke’s Bay’s neck!