Stop crying over spilt milk, get on with it
This is the second week in a row Clutha Mayor Bryan Cadogan has been crying over his spilt milk, which is that Labour did not get voted back in (ODT 15.12.23).
Time to put your big boy pants back on, do the job you were voted to do, and look after our local structure.
You thought you were going to get all that money for Three Waters, but it has worked out sadly for you. Maybe you need to get rid of some staff that got hired for all the jobs it was creating.
Try not to take on glamour projects like the town hall in Balclutha and the expense that has gone into putting the huts in Milton, plus there is probably more we don't know about. Maybe the pool needs to be scrapped?
The problem is Clutha is growing slowly but not quick enough for all those glamour projects. The only way we get them is by putting up the rates of the people that are living here and we don't yet have enough people. Reality has bit you in the bum Mr Mayor.
Maybe back to basics instead of dreaming and get a good accountant and maybe engineer, as the cost of replacing the wrong pipes put in in Milton will be again at our expense.
Smoking costs
In reply to Wyn Barbezat (ODT 12.12.23), indeed I have not overlooked the impact of smoking-related disease on our health system.
But why should I as a taxpayer be responsible for the cost of providing medical aid to someone who recognises the dangers of smoking but still engages in the habit?
The answer is not to legislate to make smoking illegal, but to provide a way in which medical aid is made available totally at a cost to the provider and user.
In reply to Susan Johnston (ODT 13.12.23), I have four sons, four daughters-in-law, and five grandchildren aged between 15 and 31. None smoke.
They have been brought up to understand the stupidity of smoking but in the end have been left to make their own personal decisions in life. It is fortunate that so far they have made the correct choices.
You cannot legislate for everything. Good initial parental guidance is also imperative.
But why turn someone into a criminal because they make a bad lifestyle choice and commence smoking.
And why only look at tobacco-related illness? Look at recreational and sports injuries.
For example in 2022 new and continuing claims totalled over 80,000 costing in excess $600 million. What a drain on the public health system that must be.
Should we perhaps consider making all contact sports and recreational activities illegal?
Why should I as a taxpayer be responsible for the cost of providing medical aid to someone who participates in sports and recreational activities knowing they risk possible injury that could cause long-term incapacity or illness.
Mum remembered
I was chuffed to see that my mother, Tiny Isaacs, got a mention in 100 Years Ago (ODT, 14.12.23).
She was Miss Mabel Morrison, "who will represent the club (Kiwi Amateur Swimming Club) in the New Zealand Championships at Wanganui."
Known as Tiny, because of her diminutive stature (she hated the name Mabel), she won the New Zealand women's diving championship aged 14, and was runner-up on other occasions.
In her 40s, she participated in the Kiwi Swimming Club's annual Aquacade, diving from the Municipal Pool's three-metre board through a flaming rubber tyre.
Her diving performances were especially noteworthy, because she had poor eyesight.
Piece outlines rural debate
Today’s article by Sally Rae on Hawea Station (ODT 16.1.23) was great for several reasons. It encapsulates the difference of many generations owning/farming isolated properties to produce meat, wool and produce to the benefit of our nation, from people with differing opinions on farming (for profit or save the planet?).
The current Hawea owners may have been a bit tongue in cheek about their description of what they purchased ... but I suggest they could spend several months on the property as did generations of Rowleys, with no electricity, a party phone line, no internet, no radio, no 4WD, horse-drawn drays to take stock to Cromwell rail head or their children to boarding school in Dunedin. Life was perhaps maybe not so idyllic?
I hope that Ms Ross will now be an active member of all the community groups and the Wanaka AP Society, which most of the generations of local family famers have supported for many years.
The Rowley family, and many others of farming stock from Otago and elsewhere, need appreciation from all New Zealanders, not denigration.
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