Alexander (Sandy) Milne

Few recent Beacon letters were more interesting for me than those in the November 27 issue.

They were enough for me to believe that electioneering for the 2025 Whakatane District Council elections has begun.          

The upper opinion piece from frequent Beacon contributor Steve Chapman was headed, “Be transparent and keep people informed – mayor told”, and Steve had a go at our mayor for not keeping us ratepayers in mind on important council business.  

I am surprised that Steve could even think that, given Dr Luca’s regular Beacon mayoral columns and frequent letters plus numerous addresses to groups which invite him.  

In his letter, Steve repeated earlier Beacon letter comments from myself and others, (especially Catrina Jones, who does her homework), regarding the boat harbour/marina fiasco.  

For readers who are not familiar with this issue, I refer to the unexploded time bomb of the ill-conceived and badly planned luxury marina on a highly polluted site so far up our Whakatāne River that no sane boatie would dream of parking there even if others tried to force him/her to do so (as is the plan).  I invite comments from boaties.

I enjoy reading Mr Chapman’s letters, and I agree with most of what he writes.  

I do not have difficulties communicating with our mayor: One can write a five-line note to Dr Luca and drop it off with the helpful staff at council’s main reception area. Emails work, too. Our mayor’s mobile number is on council’s website.

I am relieved to know that access to our council top brass is behind locked doors in this manic day and age.  

The Beacon of October 25 featured a very public response from our mayor Dr Luca in which he explained that for legal/contractual reasons he, as mayor, is no longer free to express his personal views of the boat harbour shambles.

On the other hand, I am perfectly free to express my opinions publicly and have done so in the Beacon since 1967, often to good effect.

The planned site for the boat harbour is plain daft for the many reasons which have already been given by Beacon readers.  

Those reasons include an extra 4 kilometres of slow motoring from the river mouth, the need for perpetual river dredging, the effect on other river users, and the exacerbation of existing road traffic problems, especially during the removal and relocation of the 286 thousand cubic metres of waste of high and varying toxicity to an as yet unidentified dump site.  That could exceed 30,000 truckloads of extra traffic.  

And let’s not forget that 132,000 cubic metres of the necessary replacement fill means additional thousands of truckloads

Then there is the predicted massive blow-out in costs. Ratepayers beware.

Boaties who would willingly book a costly marina berth by the river bridge should identify yourselves to our Beacon right now and publicly declare that you do not expect ratepayers to fund the certain future huge cost blow-outs.

The other page 11 letter, “What makes a good leader?” is a worry. It was signed off by Cr Nandor Tanczos.

I was curious to know what possessed our councillor and former list MP to compose that lecture, and the intended target, so I consulted widely.  

Everyone I spoke to agreed that the target was our mayor Dr Victor Luca, to whom Mr Tanczos lost so emphatically in the 2022 mayoral race.

I consider that Mr Tanczos’ lecture on leadership could well be helpful for fourth formers at our high schools, but that most Beacon readers would find it was patronising.  

And to have Professor Luca as the intended target was unforgivable sour grapes.

I have plans to give advice later to less tuned-in readers, so I dutifully searched the web to refresh myself on the achievements of Cr Tanczos and Dr/Professor Luca and myself as comparison. It was very revealing.

I earnestly invite all computer-savvy Beacon readers to do the same.

I offer a few words of advice to Cr Tanczos.  

*  You are one of 10 Whakatāne District councillors, most of whom seem unaware of the fact that many ratepayers cannot afford huge rates hikes. Our mayor, who is a popular leader, has his finger on the community pulse and his heart in the right place. You have a duty to follow him.  

*  We emphatically do not want him to follow out-of-touch councillors.  

Brace yourself for the 2025 election results.

Alexander (Sandy) Milne