Pass the bananas, Dotty

A recent commenter noted:

Dotty spins and spins... like anyone who has ventured out of town recently, [she would have] got hit with a barrage of anti-Laws comment -- unless of course out of town for her was the chimps tea party at Wellington Zoo. But then she'd hardly be able to tell the difference from the Vision caucus anyway...

In the interests of maintaining the unparalleled accuracy of LawsWatch, we'd point out that the chimps' tea party at Wellington Zoo has long since ceased to occur.

It was felt that subjecting poor captive simians to the scrutiny of the general public just so that said public could chortle at the mess they (the chimps) were making of things was somewhat cruel.

And there dear readers, you have your explanation as to why Council went into public excluded to discuss the Splash Centre funding.

The growing alarm around the township as people begin to realise that they're going to have to pay - and pay handsomely - for the shiny baubles diVision offered them in the referendum (well, we did portray Mickey as Bad Santa back in December) suggests that Councillors may soon wish to exclude themselves from the public on a semi-permanent basis. And to be fair to the Diva, and as other commenters have pointed out, it is the entire Council who are now responsible. They may have been led to the cliff edge by the Mayor, but in opting to go into a closed-door session and not bring the public into their confidence they have all - each and every single one of them - opted to jump.

Other commenters have unloaded a whole paddling pool full of red herrings into the debate, asking LawsWatch and other commenters why they "don't want the Splash extension". We want a Splash extension. We also quite fancy a new Maserati. The question is whether we can afford one, and if we can't, whether we should be forced to pay for it anyway - especially if not being told the truth by the person racking up the bill.

But rather than write a lengthy post staing the bleedin' obvious, we'll take the slackers way out and merely highlight this comment from Rob Vinsen, which does a pretty good job of explaining the point (edited for brevity - you're welcome to read the entire comment on the previous post):

I believe that the extension of the Splash Centre is the most important project that Council is currently undertaking... Yes, the community needs this facility, but they should know and accept that it will come with a significant cost.

The Mayor refuses to mention that the estimated increase (and this was based on the original cost and prior to borrowing) in the Community Facilities rate will be at least $57 pa per ratepayer, and that running costs will increase by more than $500,000 pa. There are ample examples in other cities where the cost of running their aquatic facility is becoming politically unpopular.

Yesterday's meeting was a travesty of the democratic process - the Splash Centre item was pulled from the agenda to be discussed in secret. "Commercial Sensitivity" was the reason put forward by His Worship. Absolute lies- no Councillor (not even the Vision ones) knew this was going to happen. Even Denis McGowan (the pool designer) who I spoke to said "Well, that's the shortest meeting I've ever been to, I've been told to go home".

Yesterday's exhibition was symptomatic of the lack of public information and manner the whole Splash Centre debate has been handled by the Council powerbrokers - including the dodgy referendum. If the Council dont tell the ratepayers what it's going to cost them, then at some stage it will end in tears - and that could jeopardise this much needed facility.That is my major concern.

That seems a perfectly reasonable argument to us here at the LawsWatch cave. We wonder whether the Diva and his supporter(s) can rebut it without red herring references to trams, previous elections, or anything else not germane to the point he makes. But then again, with the Diva, everything is personal. Take this response to Vinsen's comment:

...surely the mayor's mob read these postings so haven't you just done the tram project a grave disservice in dissing the same council you need to get funding & support. Own goal, mate.

The message: stop criticising the Mayor on LawsWatch if you want Council support for the tram project. Interesting way to run a democratic institution. Mind you, it's deja vue all over again. It was back in 1996 that political commentator Russell Brown noted:

Speaking of nauseating, Michael Laws is back - and behaving like a silent killer. It was made official when he was named as a "special advisor" to Winston Peters. But neither Laws nor that friend of openness and honesty, Winston, would say exactly what it was that Laws was doing. Actually, it seems pretty clear that he is settling a few scores to start with...

Already, it's goodbye to the spokesmanships of Terry Heffernan and Rex Widerstrom. The first is no great loss, but Widerstrom seems like a decent bloke, has been with the party almost since its foundation and has been putting in a lot of work. He just wasn't a friend of Laws, is all. And if you're not a friend of Michael Laws, you die.

Got that, Rob? If you're not a friend of Michael Laws, you (or your projects, no matter what their intrinsic merit) die. The way to get ahead in Wanganui these days is to shut up, go along, keep your head down, and hope for Mayoral patronage.

Update (4.25 pm): A last-minute comment added to the previous post is worth repeating lest it's missed by many:

I wonder how people would respond to clearing our debt as one of the referendumb options?

Here in the Cave, our response was a round of brow-smiting and "Why didn't we think of that?". Of course - elegantly simple when you think about it. Well, readers?

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