Posts by Christopher Dempsey
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I recall that within weeks of Mayor Banks being sworn into office, even before he was sworn at in office, having the policy of wild flowers median strips and verges on highways reversed. Having them replaced by nice, middle class, inoffensive shrubbery.
If you are referring to the wildflower strips all along the southern part of the motorway just before the Bombay Hills then I'm afraid you are incorrect. This land is NZTA land, and even there, Mayor Banks had no control. I understand that the wildflowers were replaced due to maintenance problems.
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I think where-the-line-is-drawn is actually the nub of this issue. What powers does Shields have, what policy was he acting under, what are the damn rules anyway?
Wearing my stylish elected representative hat (in recognition of fashion week coming up):
Valid questions. AFAIK Mr Shields has the power to paint out graffiti on Council property, and powers to offer the same services to private landowners where the walls/fences etc face the public road or space. I don't think that there are necessarily any rules, but I'll find out for you.
In general, the issue of council officers’ power vs. that of elected representatives is worth discussing in the Super City.
A valid issue. Under the old regime, powers of Councillors in control were extraordinary, which is why $5m can be diverted from the general Auckland City Coastline budget of $10m to one site, Judges Bay, Parnell. I do not query the outcome of this, merely point out the powers of elected representatives can be quite large. However this is quite fluid, and on other issues, officers generally ran the show. In general, about 70-80% was decided by officers, and the remaining part by elected representatives.
As a mere Community Board chair under the old regime, officers generally and politely ignored me, so I had little power, other than the power of argument, which I exploited to the hilt as officers had, and still have, very little time in their work-lives to actually think.
In the new regime, as could be imagined, everyone is busy grabbing whatever power they can, including Local Boards. Time will tell how much power each part has (Council, Local Boards, officers, CCO's). It is still early days and I dare not risk making a call.
I am struck by the dissonance between the public's perception of my power and the actual field of power in local government. It used to annoy me as the public expect elected reps to wave a wand and make things happen. It never happens like that due to the diffuse and diverse nature of that power.
It’s also politically useful that those despised bureaucrats can’t (and shouldn’t) respond to with the international sign for “dude, I’ve seen sceptic tanks less full of crap than you.” (If you’d like to make one at home: Take one clenched fist, then fully extend your middle finger. Repeat until you feel better.)
I agree, it's not helpful for officers to 'flip the bird'. They just do it in other more subtle ways; delaying things, not responding, or outright lying (there have been three instances where officers have lied to me - not because they wanted to, but because the lie was better than the truth and much less painful).
Who gets to decide what colour you paint your house?
In the Waitakere Ranges, Council does. It depends on the issue. If it’s critical that control of colour in the ‘wild’ of the Ranges be had to prevent say, bright pink being used, then the District Plan is amended. In other parts of the city, Council doesn’t control such issue (and why should it?) – control is usually exercised by NZ House and Garden, and other magazines of that ilk.
doffing said hat...
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If Auckland Council’s graffiti prevention adviser Rob Shields is really going ’round applying some sort of political acceptability test to Art on private property, well, that’s just not acceptable, I’m afraid.
I’d appreciate hearing from the mayor or councilors as to whether or not this is official policy.
AND
Oh, I’ll be cynical enough to guess Len will be cheerfully playing “blame the officials” with the best of them.
Wearing my elected rep hat, I say the following (but these are my views, not those of the Mayor or anybody else):
I too am appalled and upset at the 'greying' out of the Poynton Tce artwork. It would be immensely preferable that things were 'gayed' out and not 'greyed' out.
I don't think that there is any written policy that Mr Shields is following, other than the very obvious policy of deeming any surface painted with a spray can as being tagged, and painting it out. Far from it for me to bag officers, but I suspect that this unwritten policy leads to very unfortunate and un-intended outcomes. I will be recommending that this policy at the very minimum be amended to recognise that the use of spray paint does not necessarily mean that there is a tag.
This issue has been raised internally by me in Council and I have been told firmly that it will be handled by officers as they consider it their mistake, which is good of them to acknowledge.
However, on speaking to Cut Collective on Saturday afternoon, I am disappointed to learn that possibly this space will be under the control of Council who will 'oversee' what goes up. This is not the right approach in my book. It's a private wall, and for goodness sake, not that visible to the public, so I particularly don't mind who paints the artwork, or what the subject is.
As for the cheap shot at Len, if he had that much oversight then I'd expect the flowerbeds in parks to be changed to include his favourite flowers. In this instance, he can genuinely blame the officers.
Whipping off said hat...
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Hard News: The Wall and the Paper, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Fran O’Sullivan we’ve all bagged at one time or another, but she’s not unreasonable per se, just starting from a very different set of political axioms.
And her actual reporting is pretty damn solid – she has good contacts and knows how to use them.
If she could bear to get past her fixtation on grey zip up shoes and salmon pink walls. Her obsession with the revolution and its vainglourious ideologies is quite off-putting. She needs a makeover, a socialist - oh, I mean, capitalist, because capital is the new socialist movement in a round about way.
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Hard News: The Thread, It Is Open, in reply to ,
I like on Flickr how that photo is both the youngest and oldest photo in your set.
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It doesn't roll off the tongue, though. It sounds awkward and self-conscious to me, although it's clearly the right way to think about it.
Um ... diffabled?
Diffability?
Diffabled... diffffffabled. Hmmm. Perhaps. Diffability... diffaaaability. Difab'ity. Difffffab'ity. Yes. Better. Diffability. Meaning Differently-abled.
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There are several things in life like that. Deep philosophical questions about the meaning of life for instance, what is it all about? Apparently, you put your left leg in, you put your left leg out, you do the hokey pokey and you shake it all about… That’s what it’s all about.
Yes, sexual reproduction, with a left wing bias, simple.Then it's just a jump to the left... see, wingnuts can become senators.
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I see parallels with the American-derived ‘people-first’ labelling which (driven largely by concerned parents, from what I’ve read) was a reaction against disabled people being labelled as “the spastic” or “the deaf” or “the arthritic”. So much more human to say “people with cerabral palsy” or “people with autism” or “people with disabilities” (though still preserving medicalised labels and a deficit model).
I prefer the term differently-abled. Which is what I am. Thank-you very much.
However, dis-abled (meaning something less than 100% able) people have a hard time getting their head around the concept of differently-abled, ingrained as people are with the term.
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Hard News: About Arie, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
_clap's hands_.
Very mild and mostly unnoticeable, but there definitely.
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Hard News: About Arie, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Oh, lovely. Always the designated human shield, never the gore-soaked Viking warlord…
Least your clutch matches your nails. That's the main thing, keeping up appearances when faced with baying wingnuts. :)