Esplanade Day
Sunday, 25 February 2007
10.00am - 5.00pm

Get the family together to enjoy the magnificent Esplanade Park on Sunday, 25 February. This is a day for the whole family that showcases the best of Palmerston North. Activities and entertainment for all ages including musical performances, children’s rides, McDonalds Fun n’ Magic Show, and celebrity guest April Ieremia to name a few! Bring an empty stomach because there will also be a variety of food stalls. Grab the picnic basket, and meet us at Esplanade Park for a day of free summer entertainment.

“Local Government New Zealand is showing real leadership on the leaky homes issue,” says its President, Basil Morrison. “We have been closely engaged in the issue and the implications for councils and homeowners since 2003.”

The organisation has been trying to engage Government in discussions on possible risk-sharing mechanisms to manage the ‘leaky homes’ issue. The latest example of this was through Local Government New Zealand’s submission to the Select Committee considering the Weathertight Homes Bill in October 2006, the organisation was not successful in achieving change to the current legal situation on liability.

On Saturday night, I had the privilege of participating in the celebration of Diwali in Palmerston North. Diwali is the most significant festival of the Hindu year and symbolises the victory of good over evil, while also marking the start of the Indian New Year. The Diwali festival (also known as the Festival of Lights) is celebrated over five days at the end of the Hindu month of Ashwayuja. Fresh flowers, exchanges of gifts, new clothes, meeting with friends and family, and feasting are all part of the colourful festival. Diwali is celebrated by both Hindu and Sikh religions and this year some 400 people gathered together to celebrate in Palmerston North. We were treated to an extravaganza of dancing and music, followed by a wonderful feast.

I returned from a council workshop tonight to find tomorrow’s Guardian newspaper in my letterbox. On the front page, I am quoted as saying I am embarrassed that Palmerston North features on caughtya.org, “the international “hall of shame” website to expose people parking illegally in disability and mobility parking spaces”. The reported comment is accurate - I do find it embarrassing for the city that the single largest number of entries on that website are from Palmerston North.

From the PNCC press release: “SUPERMARKETS TOLD TO POLICE DISABILITY PARKS “

Palmerston North’s Mayor has written to local supermarkets asking them to be more vigilant about the misuse of mobility car parks.

Mayor Heather Tanguay was disappointed that supermarket representatives didn’t attend a forum organised this week by the Disabled Person’s Assembly to address the abuse of mobility parks by able bodied motorists.

She says the problem is growing and a recent survey has found that 50 percent of vehicles occupying mobility parks did not display mobility parking permits.

The City Council is once again offering financial assistance to community based arts and culture projects through the Creative Communities New Zealand Scheme.

Application forms for the scheme are available from Monday, August 28, from the Council’s Customer Service Centre with the closing date being Monday, September 25. Adviser to the scheme, Jo Sutton, says the three main aims are to enhance and strengthen the local arts sector, increase the range and diversity of arts available and increase participation in the arts at a local level.

There is the old saying that a week can be a long time in politics. The events of this week in our National Government certainly seem to add truth to that saying. First, we had Rodney Hide, the leader of the ACT party, promoting his Local Government (Rating Cap) Amendment Bill, which would have put a cap on rates increases. Along with this, we had the Greens and the National Party calling for a select committee inquiry into rates. They had met to discuss a draft Terms of Reference for this parliamentary enquiry, which was due to be before Parliament tomorrow. Rodney Hide’s Bill was defeated on its first reading and the Government moved quickly to announce an independent (ie. not Select Committee) inquiry before National and the Greens could do anything.

Last Monday night, I attended a meeting of the Environmental and Planning Well-Being Committee. Among the items debated was editorial amendments to Council bylaws. In 2004, Council undertook an extensive review of the bylaws and after many meetings, briefings and much debate, the current bylaws were eventually passed.

Now, as happens once in a while, some typographical errors were found. Things like references to the wrong clause are easily missed when people are focusing on the substance. When this happens, minor changes to correct errors are dealt with by bringing the matter forward at a publicly notified meeting.

Dame Te Atairangikaahu, the Maori Queen and longest-serving head of the Kingitanga movement, died today. She was aged 75. In May, Dame Te Ata celebrated the 40th anniversary of her coronation as leader of the Kingitanga. On Waitangi Day 1971, Dame Te Atairangikaahu, accompanied by her husband, daughter Heeni and about 100 Waikato supporters, visited Palmerston North and became the first New Zealand citizen to be given the “Freedom of the City”. It was a huge event for Palmerston North (and possibly the only time a hangi has been laid down in The Square). I still recall standing by the clocktower watching the ceremony, which was held at the now-demolished soundshell. Mayor Black did the honours. That event passed into history a long time ago and sadly, now, Dame Te Atairangikaahu has too. My sympathy goes out to her family and followers.

On August 6, 1945, at 8:15am in the morning, the nuclear weapon “Little Boy” was dropped on the city center of Hiroshima, Japan by the “Enola Gay”, a U.S. Air Force B-29 bomber which was altered specifically to hold the bomb. About 70,000–80,000 people were instantly killed by the shockwave, fireball, and radiation. By the end of 1945, tens of thousands more had died from their wounds, from radiation sickness, and from cancer related to the radioactivity. 90% of the city was destroyed or badly damaged. The true death toll will never be known. Estimates put the deaths at between 140,000 to 200,000 people, but the effects of radiation exposure continue on today, 61 years after the unleashing of the first-ever atomic bomb to be used in military action.