Letter to the Times

Time for referendum

I REFER to correspondence on stage two of the Pacific Events Centre and Noel Robinson’s appeal we look after future generations by approving this venture.

Mr Robinson may be in a position to give money to this but there are many people around Manukau who cannot afford $394.

Frankly, the city council has no mandate to invest in private enterprise and I’m surprised this is still being discussed.

We were bullied into the Pacific Events Centre by Messrs Curtis and Robinson despite feedback from the community being against it.

I would suggest a voting slip be included with the next rates notice asking ratepayers to vote on stage two.

Ratepayers could then return it with their payment and the votes be counted, so the council gets a mandate.

Would the mayor go ahead on this basis and according to the ratepayers’ votes – and would Mr Robinson be willing to accept this?

Don Barker, Howick

Remembering the First Sub 4 Minute Mile May 6, 1954

Fifty-five years ago, on a very windy day at the track on Iffley road at Oxford University, Roger Bannister, Chris Brasher and Chris Chataway made sports history. The world record set by Swede, Gunder Hagg, from 1945, of 4:01.4, was broken with the first mile under four minutes with a time of 3:59.4

It was the same year that Ed Hillary reached the summit of Mt Everest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEgHhijFnEU

Q+A’s Guyon Espiner interviews Rodney Hide

Points of interest:- Government views Auckland assets as state assets, so they won’t be sold in National’s first term- ACT Bill to cap all local body rates will be before Parliament in September: Mayors “almost as one” oppose it, National “keen to have a look at it”- ACT has delayed its Taxpayers’ Rights Bill back from “within six months” of the election to 2010- Hide committed to cutting “billions of dollars” from Government spending- Hide: “I think we have got a great deal of overlap and confusion within Cabinet… needs a tidy up”
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0904/S00244.htm

Fatty, You're Warming the Earth!

Fat people require more fuel to transport them and the food they eat, and the problem will worsen as the population literally swells in size, a team at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine says.

See full story: UK Reuters

Who's Counting

This letter first appeared in local Manukau papers this week.

WHILE attending a public meeting I was approached by a local businessman who congratulated me on my stand against the white-water rafting proposal being promoted by the trust that operates the Pacific Events Centre.

Amazingly, he told me members of the trust had shown him the business plan.
Amazingly, I say, because councillors who are being asked to make a decision on the trust’s request for $40 million have never sighted a business plan. All councillors have been told is the proposal is viable.

Remember the former mayor’s famous words when speaking of the Pacific Events Centre, “this won’t cost the rate payer a penny”.

So far it’s cost $52 million but then again who’s counting?

Political tickets join forces

Manukau’s largest local body political ticket Peoples Choice is to merge with Auckland Citizens & Ratepayers Association.

Peoples Choice chairman Hamish Stevens says the move, agreed to at an executive meeting last Wednesday, is a response to the government’s announcement that the seven Auckland councils will be merged into one.

"The new Auckland governance structure and the demise of Manukau city means we need to work at a regional level with like-minded groups

Women Athletes Hard Done By

While Valerie Vili will continue to garner athletic titles and awards but one goal that all track and field athletes aspire to will undoubtedly elude her is the world record.

In the women’s shot put the current world record is 22.63 metres set by Natalya Lisovskaya from the former Soviet Union in 1987. This is still 2 metres better than Vili’s best of 20.56 metres set last year.

The fact remains that almost all women’s world records set by athletes from the former eastern bloc were aided by a programme of state sanctioned drug taking.

How many drug free athletes were robbed of Olympic medals by athletes who otherwise would who have little better than a run of the mill athlete.

Australian, Raylene Boyle was one such athlete. Boyle was denied a gold medal in the 200m at the 1972 Munich Olympics by an athlete, Renate Stecher, East German secret service files revealed was on the state-sponsored doping program.

The Australian revels that German coaches implicated in the doping of athletes in the former German Democratic Republic are still coaching to this day.