LETTERS & EMAILS

LETTERS & EMAILS LETTER TO THE EDITOR A neighborhood cat was found dead on Pompallier Terrace on Thursday evening, 8 July around 9pm. The driver had hit the cat and driven off leaving it helpless. Cat owners on Pompallier say that it’s a common occurrence that cats and kittens are hit by cars going down Pompallier. Pompallier is a common through road for Chelsea tractors of Ponsonby rushing around. It’s been good to see the police doing alcohol checks at the top of Pompallier of late, breathalising people driving from Ponsonby Road after dinner.

But seriously, I can’t wrap my head around someone hitting a large cat and driving off in a residential suburb. Is this really what Ponsonby is?

‘MONTY PYTHONESQUE’ BOARD MEETING Yesterday I presented at the Waitemata Local Board with a hoarse, croaky voice, a metaphor for the lack of voice that the public have on serious issues like the breaches of the Resource Consent on Western Springs Forest and the decimation of 15,000 native trees in a 'Climate Change Emergency'. The only extra prop I needed was a dead parrot to make it truly Monty Pythonesque.

What did get these City Vision members excited was their 'Notice of Motion'; they had clearly caucused and coordinated previously with the City Vision members of the Devonport local board to take over two lanes of the Harbour Bridge once a month on a Sunday morning over Summer for walking and cycling. Both words 'Sunday' and 'Summer' were actually missing from the motion itself.

One presenter, in support of the motion talked about his 'civil right' to ride his bike every day across the bridge, and that he had been discussing with police to support him to do so.

A Board member got called out by a cycle lobbyists from the audience for saying a constituent had told her about their friend suiciding from the bridge and bringing the Board's attention to potential health and safety risks of no wind/safety barrier.

Several local board members had been stranded in Blenheim during a local government conference where they voted to put a remit into government to return tree protection, yet Auckland Council is one of the biggest offenders in the removal of mature trees, and The removal of a healthy maturing native forest, to replace it with shrub and seedlings at a cost over $3 million appeared to be completely lost on them!

Michael Palin and John Cleese would have had a ball with this as a script. Gael Baldock, Community Advocate

WESTERN SPRINGS FOREST Good on you Ponsonby News for publishing that story about the destruction of Western Springs Forest. Public discussion about social matters is so lacking in this country and we are becoming afraid to upset people because our opinions dare cross the ‘party line’. We have to read about it in ‘The Spectator’ from Melbourne I think. There is a huge push to annul all of our public parks of anything not native, and Western Springs is just one of these areas. God help us if they start cutting out those magnificent species in Cornwall Park. Keep going team! Johny Black, Grey Lynn

JOHN STREET STREETSCAPE I hope you might be able to help me. I am wondering if perhaps John Street is on the border of some invisible council line? It is the only explanation I can think of as to why the street planting is, on one side, looked after and on the other an embarrassing mess.

The first two images show the islands on the St Paul's side of John Street; tidy, if not predictably boring and colourless, but maintained non the less. The second two are of the Ponsonby Road side. A shambles. One is the remains of a tree that blew down several years ago. The other, I've no idea.

Might you know why we aren't allowed nice things? Will anyone ever come and tidy this mess up? Why is it like this at all?

I am just hoping you might have a connection at the council who might be able to answer these questions? Name and address provided but withheld on request continued p12

Pictured John Street Streetscape