I OFFER Beacon readers advice following the excellent June 21 Beacon letter from Catherine McConachy regarding the recent Michael Hill Jewellers attack.  In her impeccably composed letter, Catherine mentioned the anger of residents who moan about now having to travel to Tauranga and pay $20 to get a watch battery replaced.  

Some customers took it out on innocent and still recovering Michael Hill staff.  

My advice is not for Catherine, but for ignorant bullies who are rude to shopkeepers or check-out operators anywhere on the planet and is this: Get your act together; only idiots do that.  

In this case you should know that watch batteries cost less than 50 cents each.  I am 90 and can replace batteries in 90 percent of watches in 5 minutes. Why can’t you or one of your friends do that?

Furthermore, I have a battery-powered watch that loses less than one second a week.  It cost me $7.  

(Captain Cook or any other global navigator in past centuries would have paid a million dollars for a timepiece like mine).  

Nowadays, anyone can buy three new watches complete with batteries for $20.  

Perhaps the guys in The Men’s Shed or the Bridge Club or Kopeopeo knitting circle could provide a free battery service?  

(As another personal community service, I offer to provide free batteries for the next five years).

If none of the above outfits step up, I will do that for no fee for a while.  My landline # is in the book.

Angry young men or women excluded.  They should consult a shrink.

Alexander (Sandy) Milne

Knock marina on the head now

I HOPE that Whakatāne district councillors read “Time to terminate harbour plan” from Dr Allan McDougall in the June 12 Beacon.

Dr McDougall has been a respected family doctor here for many years, and is also a boatie, so is perfectly placed to comment on the boat harbour/marina issue.  

He describes the toxic chemicals on the former dump site by our bridge as horrendous, and he invited residents to read up about their extreme toxicity, persistence and pervasiveness.  

Dr McDougall also panned the location of the marina, as so many Beacon contributors have done.  

Our mayor, Dr Victor Luca, made his opposition very clear in the pre-election “Meet the candidates” story in the Beacon of September 23, 2022, and again a week later.  

Surely our mayor could knock this marina nonsense on the head right now by inviting Dr McDougall and other GPs to address our councillors ASAP.

Perusing past Beacon clippings, it is clear he continues to oppose the marina, which will be managed by Ngati Awa if it ever gets off the ground.  

I presume that Dr Luca opposes the tactics used by councillors and managers who want to spend many millions of our dollars on the Rex Morpeth Park Hub at a time when we are already hurting.  

Do Beacon readers remember our mayor’s opinion piece on September 30, 2022, in which he bewailed the fact that rates would rise by 21.2 percent over the following three years?  

What do we have now? Almost exactly double that figure at 42 percent.  

Much of the extra burden is due to excessive staff salaries, but repeated unwise spend-ups are there for all to see.  

Our mayor should follow the example of central government and lay off 7.5 percent of council staff.  

I suggest that new big budget items should be vetted in advance by elderly ratepayers, eg Grey Power members, or a community group like WAG (Whakatāne Action Group).  

I am sure that for example, they would have given the thumbs down to that costly new barricade near the marae.  Would our outgoing chief executive kindly advise us all on how that expense landed in our lap without notice at a bad time for ratepayers?

Alexander (Sandy) Milne

Fiscal quagmire

WHILE not in any way a soothsay of matters fiscal, an awakening is essential to extract our town from a fiscal quagmire which will require persistence and austerity to correct.  

This is the inevitable consequence of squandering of assets and frivolous expenditure on projects that are of little or of no value, merely to appease a vocal minority with no concept of reality.  

K Ingram