Illusions shattered

The Watchers' ceaseless vigilance doesn't stop with keeping tabs on the Diva and his fellow council members and staff. Aware of the treasure trove of late modernist civic architecture of which Wanganui rightly boasts, LawsWatch today starts a series of occasional pieces examining how these important buildings are faring under the Diva's regime.

We've always particularly admired 101 Guyton Street, built in the style of those other architectural treasures the Memorial Hall and Wanganui Gas offices - and with the trademark concrete grid intended, no doubt, to add to the sense of drama and intrigue about the daily lives of our chosen leaders and their staff.

So it was with mounting alarm that our team of Civic Building Watchers found a distinct modification to the facade of the building, behind the grid and in the front glass wall of that most important of all rooms ... (no not the dunny) the Mayoral Office.

We wonder if the Historic Places Trust was consulted before a large-ish sheet of MDF board was put across part of the glass pane?

What could have brought about this modification? A touching gesture of empathy with the residents of the Pepper Block over at Wanganui East? Or the start of the diVision-promised public artworks programme?

Note to Sam Hoyle: There's a theory of law'n'order known as "Fixing Broken Windows". It worked very well in New York under Rudy Giuliani, and we're sure the Diva would want you to consider it's introduction locally. In essence, it holds that people who go round doing naughty things such as breaking windows are likely to go on to commit far worse indiscretions, so you've got to crack down on them, hard, as soon as the first window is broken. We leave it in your able hands.

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