Alexander (Sandy) Milne

I commend the Beacon for its diligent coverage of the 2025 local body elections.
That was amongst the best efforts of Beacon reporters I have seen in decades.

If the two-full-pages, "STAND FOR SOMETHING - VOTE NOW" headlines in Wednesday's Beacon doesn't remind everyone to make their own effort to vote, what will it take to motivate them to do their duty to see that our community has strong and representative leadership?  

I do not trust social media; so many wacky ideas, and no editor.  

Wednesday's opinion piece from candidate Malcolm Whitaker, and sensible letters from Catrina Jones and Raewyn Kingsley-Smith topped off the election reportage for me.  So I thank the Beacon for that, and also thank most (but not all) of the correspondents who have contributed to date.

I urge the people who have yet to vote, to think twice about supporting candidates or their supporters who believe that our mayor should go along with the majority views of councillors, instead of leading the way in thoughts and deeds as our current mayor has done for six years, beginning when he was a councillor in the 2019 - 2022 term.

Good leaders need good followers, and our mayor has achieved much during three years despite facing a council which included three people who had challenged him for the role in 2022.

Some commentators have criticised Victor Luca for failing to follow the losers or go along with long term plans which would hurt poorer ratepayers.  

It's a pity that they do not understand what the word "leadership" means.

Even if he had selected and appointed our councillors, he would surely have been free to disagree with their views.  In fact, he was justified and vindicated in his opposition to every costly and failed project which his councillors and former mayors had approved.

But Dr Luca did not select the councillors; we ratepayers and other residents did that.  

New Zealand appears to me to be going backwards on a slippery slope, and right now we need a council which cares about the plight of less well-off ratepayers, not those in our midst who have more money than sympathy for others.

I urge readers to please vote wisely.  I note that as of yesterday at 8am, only 26 percent of eligible voters appear to have done their bit.  

Let's do better.

Editor note: the front-page takeover of the Beacon on Wednesday was paid advertising from Whakatāne District Council and part of its campaign to encourage voting in this month’s election.