Author: Jon Turner
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“F***!” was my first thought. “Thank god I’m wearing a helmet”, my second, as my head hit the ground. “Why haven’t NZTA done anything about this,” was the third, as I skidded along the chipseal road, nicely tearing up my right thigh. “Everything hurts” was the fourth. “Look cool” was number five, as I stand…
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Auckland Council is currently seeking submissions on its 10 year Long Term Plan.This is a document which sets out the activities, services and investments planned for the next 10 years and how they will be paid for. This year’s iteration is an important one, as the Council has suffered revenue loss and needs to prioritise…
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It has now been a full calendar year (and a bit!) since I was elected to the Puketāpapa Local Board, and it is almost a cliché now to say that it has been a year no one expected. I have put together my ‘year in review’ as a summary of what I, and the rest…
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Update: I (Jon) recently tried to add a group of trees to the schedule and received the reply below from Auckland Council. Sadly, it seems there is no way to protect trees in Tamaki Makarau at present. Today’s post is written by the awesome Bobby Shen, a fellow Roskill Community Voice member on the Puketāpapa…
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The title of this page is a quote from James Frick, and a particularly relevant one for councils and Government. I thought it would be good to go into a bit of depth about how our budgets are set and how the money is divided up. For me, figuring out how money is allocated was…
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The LGNZ guide for candidates says that “Local Board members spent on average 20 hours a week” in their role as a member. Interestingly, some people seem to think they can still hold a full time role as well as doing their duties as an elected member. In this post I will go over some…
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If I had to choose a question, this is the one that pops up most often. Its understandable – first of all, a lot of people don’t even know what a Local Board is, let alone what a Local Board does. The first step is understanding how Council works. Unfortunately, that’s something that a mere…
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Wesley Bay is a nice, long, calm beach that retains its ‘swim time’ longer than most of the others along the coast. Named after the former Wesleyan mission which was ‘granted’ the land around these ways for establishing a school, there is history all along the cliffs above it. Frequented by dogwalkers, fishers and flounderers,…
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The bay that gives the area its name, Waikōhai can be beautiful on the right day. The name Waikōwhai means “Kōwhai trees by the water’s edge” and the valley used to be full of the beautiful flowering trees. There are some sections of the walkway that still feature impressive mature Kōwhai trees but unfortunately down…
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