Mahurangi Matters, 6 September 2017 – Off the Record

Rodney views

Sometimes it’s the little things about Auckland Council that really irritate people. We recently received an email from a reader who suggested we visit the Rodney Local Board page on the Council website. It didn’t take long to see what had upset them … Rodney has so many fabulous photo opportunities, so you would have to ask why they would use one of the Mt Eden shopping centre!

Which north?

Heaven help visitors to NZ who are trying to find their way north from Auckland Airport using the road signs. A staff member, who is no stranger to the Auckland road network, recently came in on a red-eye flight and decided to follow the signs as if they were a visitor. ‘North’ and ‘Wellsford’ seemed like a good idea until they found themselves on SH16. While they knew how to back-track through Riverhead and Coatsville to SH1, we doubt that a visitor even with GPS navigation would find it an easy task.

Protest reaches new heights

When local residents turned out to protest the felling of a large, old Norfolk pine tree at Snells Beach last week, one of the first objectors on the scene was former Rodney Local Board member Steven Garner. As police, developers, contractors and complainants mulled over various legal, or moral, rights and wrongs of whether the tree could or should be cut down, Mr Garner recalled happy childhood memories of the beachside landmark. “I used to climb this tree 35 years ago,” he mused, in between making calls to local government. “In fact, I think I’ll climb it now.” There was a degree of nervousness from some observers when he not only did just that, but completely disappeared in the dense foliage – some thought he was taking the protest to another level, and wouldn’t come down until the tree was safe – but he eventually emerged unscathed, and continued taking a stand via his smartphone.