Thanks ++ to all who came on such  a rainy night – estimated at 150! And thanks to our speakers, especially Stanley Palmer and Reverend Solomona who shared their personal reasons for keeping Chamberlain as it is!! Thank you to Stanley for donating his lovely watercolours of CP for auction.

Thanks also to all those passionate people from the audience who stood up and recounted their horrendous experiences dealing with City Vision Councillors. They included the good people from Fowlds Park, the Society for the Protection of Western Springs Forest and the NZ Horticultural Society who outlined the same issues SCP have – false information posing as facts, poor consultation, no compromise, no dialogue or interaction etc etc. Victoria Toon of Eden Park Trust Board and a chartered accountant outlined her interaction with Peter Haynes over the $30 million budget for the CP redevelopment. She said Peter Haynes’ understanding of the costs involved was naïve and that the true cost will be in the range of $50 million!!

Thanks also to the people who stood up and gave their take – the multicultural impact, the opportunities for the very young to play, the health benefits for the community etc, etc

This is not a “democracy”. Decisions that affect the community are made at Council meetings without any specialist input or reference to appropriate studies or appropriate costing. They then “consult” with the community, not revealing all the facts and manipulating the questions asked to ensure their decision is justified. Even if the consultation process goes against their decision, they know they have the right to ignore the public opinion.

City Vision Councillors are particularly bad at this. They have power and they are happy to abuse that power by ignoring the people’s will.

To date they have ignored over 21,700 people who have signed our petition! Councils in other areas have been known to alter their decisions when petition numbers are as low as 5,000. City Vision are so arrogant that they can’t see the wood for the trees. Actually, with their distorted logic, maybe they think the solution is to chop down all the trees so they can see the woods!?