Lugubrious line-up

LawsWatch readers show an interesting spread of support in the Buy-election poll, with a majority supporting Margaret Campion but a lot of vote splitting going on. Mark Simmonds is also popular, with Allan Anderson making a respectable showing along with Phillipa Baker-Hogan.

The anonymous commenter cheering on Chandra Osborne hasn't convinced many of you, While it seems Rana Waitai, Heather Marion Smith and Bren Sinclair aren't impressing anyone either.

• Allan Anderson 14%
• Philippa Baker-Hogan (Vision) 13%
• Margaret Campion 40%
• Chandra Osborne 3%
• Mark Simmonds 29%
• Bren Sinclair 0%
• Heather Marion Smith 0%
• Rana Waitai 1%

Most people are still, by a fairly large margin, picking a Phillipa Baker-Hogan win, however, with Margaret Campion and Mark Simmonds second favourites.

• Allan Anderson 2%
• Philippa Baker-Hogan (Vision) 39%
• Margaret Campion 25%
• Chandra Osborne 7%
• Mark Simmonds 23%
• Bren Sinclair 0%
• Heather Marion Smith 0%
• Rana Waitai 4%

Readers haven't responded to our suggestion that they review the performance of the candidates at last night's meeting. We hope that doesn't mean none of you went.

Congratulations to the Chron for running the forum - and we can only hope that the 60 percent of outstanding ballot papers yet to be returned were merely being hoarded till after the only event that allowed a side-by-side comparison.

Muddled impressions from Watchers secreted in the eaves:

• Alan Taylor (Vision candidate for the Community board) predictably thinks 12 councillors is too high a number. So if a dozen people is too many to govern the entire district, he's surely putting his hand up to join a body which is utterly superfluous?
  
• Tuffy Churton, meanwhile, wants the prisoners let out of Kaitoke to collect recycling bins. Yes, Tuffy, but it's the recycling of the prisoners that poses the flaw in that plan. While the mulched River City Press may return to life as Mayoral three-ply, how many of the collectors would return to the depot? Perhaps the Mayor's Unmounted Vigilantes could switch from their street patrols to riding shotgun on rubbish trucks.
  
• Heather Marion Smith countered with the suggestion that it be subbed out to the local Rotary Club. Now there's a fine no one will want to pay, so we can at least expect the behaviour of those unruly Rotarians to improve.
  
• Ms Smith is against reducing Councillor numbers, as is Allan Anderson, who called it a "reduction of the collective wisdom". Well yes... that'd be true in most cases, but the absence of the likes of Dotty and Muzza Hughes makes the collective wisdom round the Council table increase, surely?
  
• And Ms Smith made the important point that while the Diva's eagerly pushing to reduce the number of people who can scrutinise his decisions, he's busily stacking the boards of Wanganui Inc and Wanganui Holdings with people who are accountable to no one but him, almost redeeming herself for the "Rubbish for Rotarians" suggestion.
  
• Everyone agreed the fluoridation of Wanganui’s water supply is a bad thing. Presumably they won't be needing to smile in forthcoming election portraits.
  
• And everyone prevaricated on the 'H' issue, other than Mark Simmonds who came out against its inclusion and at least showed his appendages are still attached. Rana Waitai pointed out that a referendum wasn't the appropriate mechanism to decide such an issue, calling its inclusion "mischievous". In the climate created by the Diva in Wanganui today we guess that's brave, though calling the Diva "mischevious" is like calling Jeffery Dahmer "peckish".
  
• Margaret Campion stated the obvious (though it certainly needed saying) - that Code of Conduct hearings ought to be presided over by an outside adjudicator. That brought acclamation from the audience. LawsWatch thoroughly endorses the idea, and suggests looking to the independent citizens of Raetihi, Whakatane, Stratford or Christchurch for suitable candidates.
  
• Everyone thought the Splash Centre extension was a jolly good idea but most were worried by the borrowing that's funding it. After the meeting they no doubt lined up at the servery for cups of tea and asked for the cake you can have whilst eating it too.


• Only Phillipa Baker-Hogan was predictably in favour of it, no matter what the cost. After all, her Leader can always wear a couple more t-shirts on TV and the resultant tourist influx will cover the cost. "The community needs it," she said of the pool. We expect Oxfam to start a campaign any moment, with beet-red pudgy Wanganui-ites standing ankle deep in their backyard paddling pools while a voice-over intones "These people are forced to sweat almost every third day... your donation can help..."
  
• Philippa Baker-Hogan looked clearly uncomfortable when questioned over her failure to declare her Vision links on her nomination form. An "oversight" she said, but tellingly added that if she'd stood as an independent she "wouldn't have had to wear body armour everywhere".
  
• On the issues of selling the Sarjeant artworks, Ms Baker-Hogan has clearly learned a thing or two from her Leader Slippery Mickey, and avoided actually answering. Arts supporters present definitely got the impression that she was hinting a sell-off might be used to fund Vision's Heart of the City project, but Watchers were too busy trying to deconstruct her answer to actually make any sense of it.
  
• Rana Waitai and Allan Anderson established their Philistine credentials by saying anything in the basement was fair game for a fire sale. And presumably those suits they weren't wearing yesterday evening are fair game for a donation to Oxfam - they're not actually being used at the time, after all. Margaret Campion and Mark Simmonds both opposed any sale.
  
• Everyone seemed a little confused about the diversion of ratepayers' money from volunteer community groups to Wanganui Inc, but at least some could do the simple math that suggests more for Ron Janes and Co means less for everything else. Campion and Simmonds both pointed out that many organisations need council funding to survive and they're not going to get it if it's all gobbled up by the bread & circuses agenda of the Diva & Ron Show.
  
• Again predictably, Phillipa Baker-Hogan saw the disappearance of $200,000 of ratepayers' hard-earned cash up the Wanganui Inc spout as a good thing, even though it's CEO trousers $100,000 a year for the arduous task of running the whole shebang. Watch out Watchers who work for Council (and there's a few of them there, we assure you) because she predicted "less waste of money" at Council through "a reduction in some of the middle management". Who needs people providing services when you've got film premieres and swimming pools. And there's always those Rotarians on standby if the bins start to overflow.
  
• Chandra Osborne wasn't there. A broken nail emergency perhaps?

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