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Snells Beach path
Having been submitters to the proposal with individual submissions and a 700-signature petition, and attending both the hearing of that petition and listening to the local board workshop, we are staggered by the excessive attention being given to a very small problem.
At the workshop, we were again staggered to find out that this proposal had been worked on for at least two years by several senior council officers, and it had been costed in 2023 at around $100,000. It is not only the cost of the actual project that is of great concern but also now the extra cost associated with it from the use of substantial officers’ time.
The mayor is on the record stating that he wants to reduce costs of projects that are deemed unnecessary. “Council has to figure out what the actual problem is that it is trying to solve before spending money attempting to solve it”. This is highlighted in this case, as the council officers have stated that this is “experimental”! So much money on an experiment, when there are more cost-effective and simpler methods which would achieve a better solution.
The very technical presentation given to the board workshop by some of those senior officers was misleading and actually incorrect. This was shown up when one of the board members questioned the use of one photograph designed to show the location of these birds indicating their proximity to the area in question. It was stated that these had been taken two years before in another location at the other end of the beach. This clearly shows that the birds do use other areas of the beach to congregate and potentially to roost. This highlights the major issue that we have with the council case for its proposal.
Council clearly states that these birds are under threat from adjacent activity (using a picture of people enjoying the beach on the far side of a large group of the birds in this area) and therefore need greater protection. They tried to show how these birds were reacting when people were close. It is very well known that the birds nest on the beach and not on the grass areas by the path.
We hope that common sense will prevail and that the board will reject all the proposed options (even the reduced version).
Stan Armiger, Snells Beach, and petition convenor
(Abridged – full letter can be read online)
School lunches
There has been a lot of talk about school lunches recently so I thought I would share my story.
When I started school, I rode eight miles on a horse to Hikutaia School in the Coromandel Ranges. I was the second of 13 children. We always made our sandwiches at night for the next day. Our mother would supervise us, but we did the sandwich making. We’d peel the cucumber and whatever else was in season, and put it all through the mincer along with an onion and carrots. Then we’d make our own dressing from cream, sugar and golden syrup, thickened with cornflour. Any meat would go through the mincer, too.
It would all go on homemade bread, which was always thick because it was so hard to cut thin. The sandwiches then went into an oatmeal bag – no plastic then! The younger ones had safety pins to close their bags, while we older ones had ties.
We always ate it all, either at school or on the way home, and we had to take any uneaten crusts home to the chooks. Nothing was wasted. Our sandwiches were thick, but they were delicious.
When anyone left their lunch at home, the teacher made us all share, which was good.
Sometimes we went to school with just boiled potatoes and boiled chops. We used to think it was a good meal and never worried about what the other children thought. We were never hungry.
Rhona Olesen, Wellsford (aged 101 years)
