Letters Friday 21 May 2010
Library car park
I am bemused , or to be honest as an elderly curmudgeon, completely cynical about the green circles in the library car park. If I open the subject with others I get raised eyebrows, pursed lips and slow shake of the head.
Chuck Berry would be grinning “Ce’st La Vie’ say the old folk ‘It Just Shows You Never Can Tell”
I thought a car park was a car park, by any other name. You back out using all your mirrors and drive at a speed where you can stop instantly if there are children or another car backing out. I’ve been told the circles have a “calming effect”. To anyone who has just received their rate demand the opposite has been observed.
The grapevine says they cost $10,000. Please give Chris Finlayson another $10,000 and let him finish the job. Portraits of the TDC bureaucracy?
Alan Swafford
TDC’s transportation manager Gary Clark replies: The project cost $6000 and it was money well spent. The green circles provide an alternative way to calm traffic in an area that has lots of pedestrians in it at various times of the year. The circles visually break up the asphalt, and alter the drivers’ focus from an area that looks and feels like a road to a shared space where speed needs to be reduced and drivers should take great care.
We know the Golden Bay community’s openness to innovation and progress and we thought we’d give the idea a try in the Takaka car park. Council did consider other options to address the problems of the interaction between vehicles and vulnerable road-users. These were “hard engineering” solutions and they included speed humps - we’d have needed five - and dedicated footpaths. Both of these would have cost significantly more than the green circles.
I’m not aware of anything similar in New Zealand but they have been used with some success overseas. The Takaka car park seemed to be a good place to trial this innovative technique. I won’t be surprised if other communities hear about the green circles and start asking us to provide them in their situations.
Accident in library car park
Thank you to all those wonderful medical, ambulance, and people, who came to our help after my wife’s accident when she tripped on the green camouflaged judder bar at the Commercial Street entrance of the library car park. While I filled the role of a stressed useless husband, you did what was needed at the time. My grateful thanks.
John Smith
Freedom camping
Well said, Chris Shaw (Letters 14/5) about the so-called “problem” of freedom camping.
Were our councillors and other naysayers never young? Perhaps they, like many other young Kiwis, headed off overseas or around New Zealand on a shoestring budget. Why do we not welcome overseas young people travelling similarly here? When I owned the kayak company I asked visitors about this. They said that they had money for food, vehicle and adventure activities, with virtually nothing left for anything else. These people cannot afford camping grounds even if they wanted to use them. After all, apart from a toilet they have everything else with them.
Our councillors seem intent on bringing in a permit system as used in Gisborne. Unfortunately this is a complete red-herring as it is only for self-contained vehicles which do not cause problems anyway. More laws and regulations will also be a complete waste of time as the travellers will not read them, or abide by them and each year brings a fresh lot of vans. So why not, as Chris suggests, install toilets and rubbish bins and employ a person to welcome these people rather than hassling them, and then everyone wins?
River Howe
National standards testing in school
Many parents, teachers and principals throughout the country are very concerned about the National Standards testing that the governments is imposing on schools and students. These tests have not been trialled and there has been no consultation with educators – in fact four of our top educational practitioners and researchers felt so strongly about the implementation of this system that they wrote an open letter to the Minister, and were ignored.
Despite this kind of system failing in England and America, Minister Tolley has stated she believes more testing will lift student achievement. This assumption is flawed. Teachers know students learn at different rates and do not want students as young as 5 years to be labelled as failing.
Good teaching and support for students who are struggling lifts achievement. Our education system and primary school teachers are among the best in the world. A 2009 report, (oecd.org/els/social/childwellbeing) comparing us with other OECD countries found that our kids came fourth in terms of educational achievement.
We already have standardised tests that are used in most schools in New Zealand. What is the Government’s agenda and why are these tests not required to be implemented in private schools?
If you are also concerned about this, your local primary schools have a petition that you can sign over the next week to make your voice heard.
Wendy Drummond.
Integrated Health: Debt & Risk
I welcome responding to the request of Peter Burton, NMDHB general manager, to clarify how the $10,000,000+ price tag for the GB Community Health Centre (GBCHC) was calculated. Simply: principal+interest = total mortgage debt. Using an internet amortisation table to calculate the IMG’s reported 15-year mortgage at 8.5% fixed interest, $4,300,000 principal+$3,321,884.18 interest =$7,621,884.18 total mortgage debt.
IMG’s total projected costs for the GBCHC, using simple addition: $7,621,884.18 mortgage debt+$2,150,000 IMG’s national fundraising =$9,771,884.18+inevitable unaccounted costs =over $10,000,000.
Front page The Nelson Mail, 23 April 2010: In 2007 NMDHB opened the new Murchison Hospital and Health Centre, with a six-bed rest home facility, for $2.6 million. Today Murchison residents are shocked that their aged care and primary care may be axed. Murchison Hospital was only one service assessed in the NMDHB’s cost-cutting Rutherford Initiative aiming to strip $10,000,000 off spending over the next three years. Full article: stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/news/3615919/Murchison-aged-care-beds-may-face-axe
Please, John Peters, NMDHB CEO and IMG chair, answer: What is NMDHB’s decision for the aged-care beds at the new Murchison Hospital? What happens to the whole integrated service in Golden Bay if the rest home remains unviable after integration?
Ro Piekarski for GB MORE,
Money to Revitalise the Economy
Response from IMG: We appreciate Mr Piekarski’s explanation regarding his estimates of costs. We reiterate that interest costs are more than adequately covered by the rental costs paid by Nelson Bays Primary Health. We repeat that part of the cost of providing health services is the provision of accommodation, either via ownership or rent, and these have a cost attached.
The business case developed demonstrates both the services provided by NBPH and the community health property trust will be viable. This business case will obviously be tested when we approach bankers and other funding bodies for finance. This viability is achieved by the efficiencies delivered through the integration of services and a close attention to costs to ensure the service continues to live within its means – something which any other organisation or for that matter household needs to do. Integration does not simply involve the co-location of services but sees all existing services delivered by a single multidisciplinary team. As such it is not about one service subsidising another but the efficiencies derived from bringing all the services together under one provider on the same site.
With a relatively static but aging population the demand for rest home services is unlikely to decrease. As such it is unlikely a significant part of the building will become redundant. Indeed the building design provides expansion zones to enable additional rest home beds to be added as demand increases.
Regarding Murchison, no decisions have been made on how the Nelson Marlborough District Health Board will manage its facilities there. In any event Murchison, as other areas of the services in the district, is a separate issue to Golden Bay and no meaningful correlations can be drawn to the current proposal by the IMG.
Kidz n Koffee
Kidz n Koffee has been in recess for a few months. We are looking at starting it up again on Wednesday mornings during school term from 10am to 12 noon.
Any mothers/caregivers out there with babies, toddlers or preschoolers keen to drop in for a low-key informal playgroup? We are looking for new mums to come along to our relaxed and casual coffee group, for a chat and a cuppa.
Most of our kids have grown up and are now at school and families have moved away but we would like to see the group continue if there is enough interest. We have lots of toys and a lovely renovated hall that the Anglican Church lets us use, right in the middle of town. Come along this Wednesday morning 26 May for a look and a free muffin, we’d love to see some new faces and those who have been before. More info phone Andrea 5259388, Angela 5257330 or Gabrielle 5256107.
Andrea Ward
