by Cimino | 15 Sep 2016 | Berger for the board, Concurrent elections, Election turnout, Local board, Youth voting
Polling gets blamed for a lot of things. For starters, for influencing folk into voting for the winning side. Or, conversely, for influencing folk into voting for the underdog. Whereas, in an ideal world, voters would express their honestly held preference, regardless...
by Cimino | 10 Sep 2016 | Election turnout, Local board, Youth voting
After three decades of Kids Voting, there is ample evidence to back it up. And for half that time, after it was imported from the United States by the then Auckland City Council, kids in Aotearoa have been at it. This year, a record 11 730 students in the Auckland...
by Cimino | 29 Aug 2016 | Berger for the board, Local board, STV, Youth voting
Voters, reasonably, seek to get their money’s worth. But thanks to obdurate royal commissionersin fairness, also to other governments and Auckland councils before and since, Auckland Council remains stuck in the bad old days of first-past-the-post, and voters are...
by Cimino | 25 Aug 2016 | Local board, Regional parks, Rivermouth ferry
Car-free Te Muri with coastal trail no mirage The indications were entirely auspicious, even before the wrap-up. Then the commissioners, who had just finished hearing submissions on the future development of Te Muri, outlined the points they expected Auckland...
by Cimino | 10 Aug 2016 | Berger for the board, Local board
Although sick was more likely word for a millennial to use, snazzy was the immediate reaction of one of Tessa Berger’s strongest local supporters, and, no doubt, that of the majority of the Mahurangi Magazine’s...
by Cimino | 4 Aug 2016 | Berger for the board, Local board
Mahurangi ‘bulletins’ had been getting progressively more ambitious, climaxing, in January 2007, with the first, glossy magazine format, Mahurangi Magazine. The proximate spur was the need to fill the void left when the Mahurangi Cruising Club briefly decided that its...
by Cimino | 29 Jul 2016 | Berger for the board, Election turnout, Local board, Youth voting
In 2013, Len Brown was elected by a mere 16.5% of Aucklanders registered to vote. This was the result of an abysmal 35% turnout, and marginal popularity combined with the inevitable consequences of first-past-the-post. Dazed and disillusioned with the new governance...
by Cimino | 20 Jul 2016 | Regional parks, Rivermouth ferry
Convince the commissioners and Te Muri car-free forever Auckland Council and the community are now in accord. Scheduled to be published today, are the council’s recommendations to the commissioners who will effectively determine the future of Te Muri. When the draft...
by Cimino | 16 Jul 2016 | Four waters
Sometimes the wait for a win can be a long one. But the issue that precipitated the formation of Mahurangi Action 42 years ago has finally been put to bed. In 1974, the then Warkworth Town Council was belatedly beginning to address its discharge of its septic sewage,...
by Cimino | 22 Jun 2016 | Paths and trails
Forty-four-plus objections in four days, and it was all over. That is, all over for the Pakiri Hill paper-road stopping for the present, as the property holder may yet choose to go another round and slug it out in the Environment Court, but more about that possibility...
