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12 ideas for the mayor’s first 100 days
Wellington.Scoop
At almost the same time as Mayor Celia Wade-Brown was being sworn in last night, the Prime Minister was announcing the success of his negotiations to keep the two Hobbit movies in New Zealand. The Hobbit decision ensures the continued growth of Miramar, where Sir Peter Jackson’s activities are centred. It also means that the new mayor begins her three-year term with the surety of substantial economic activity for her city.
No doubt she’ll be initiating discussions on many levels to take advantage of last night’s $670m news. But the results of economic planning don’t come quickly. Here are 12 suggestions which could be programmed into her first 100 days. They would enable the new mayor to show that she can deliver results quickly, and they would build on the goodwill which surrounds her election.
Put more seats in Civic Square. (On sunny days, there’s nowhere to sit). Encourage more activity in Civic Square. Where are the buskers? The food stalls?
Start the process of changing the rules so that new buildings are not allowed on Waitangi Park. The park is a success as it is. The old regime’s plans for new buildings would destroy the park’s openness and would block its connections with the harbour.
Take down the council’s “vote now” signage on top of the Embassy. [Okay - it's gone, but it's been replaced by another of the council's own advertisements.] This prime space should be leased for private advertising, which used to earn $100,000 a year for the council. (The revenue might help to cover the cost of fixing a couple of leaky homes).
Cancel the embarrassing weekly advertisements in the DomPost. They have nothing to say that couldn’t be said in half a page, or less. (The savings could help cover the cost of fixing a few more leaky homes).
Reduce the number of council websites. Does the council really need so many of them?
Tell the airport company to give up the foolish idea of a Wellywood sign. (Someone has suggested this morning that it should say Warnertown.)
Talk to the Transport Agency and tell them that the city will never accept a flyover alongside the Basin Reserve.
Fix the timing of the traffic lights which are programmed to change to red as vehicles approach them. Any motorist could provide a list of these, to be given to the city’s unobservant traffic engineers.
Fix all the droopy street signs. (This could be a project for Student Job Search.)
Find ways of opening branch libraries at weekends.
Encourage retired people to turn up at libraries a couple of days a week, to help migrants learn English or tutor a primary school child. Or to volunteer as weekend staff.
Encourage the development of stronger community identity, by facilitating summer block parties, where streets are closed off on a Saturday or Sunday to promote interest in community issues and to get neighbours to know each other. This could even lead to community involvement in cleaning up the streets, rather than complaining about the absence of the council.
Who has some other good (and simple) ideas for the new mayor?
I’m certainly with you on cancelling the weekly advertisements in the DomPost. By saving a fraction of the colossal spend WCC wastes on huge (but still largely ignored) spreads in the paper, Celia could play to her strengths & develop a regular, direct and personalised electronic newsletter to all ratepayers and other interested subscribers.
It wouldn’t hurt that the paper so determined to undermine her from day 1 of her Mayoralty (see http://wccwatch.wordpress.com/2010/10/27/dom-post-wait-until-swearing-in-day-to-rain-on-new-mayors-parade/ ) would lose hundreds of thousands of reasons why they should consider presenting fact, not fiction, as local news in future, and not slanting their publication against a very popular and principled leader that we all need to see succeed.
From the article:
“Reduce the number of council websites. Does the council really need so many of them?”
Could you, please, name these websites? I was able to find only one Wellington City Council website: http://www.wellington.govt.nz
Thank you!
http://www.wellington.govt.nz/
http://www.wellingtonnz.com/events
http://www.wellingtonnz2011.com/
http://www.feelinggreat.co.nz/index.php
http://www.wellingtonconventioncentre.com/
http://www.wellingtonwaterfront.co.nz/
http://www.museumofwellington.co.nz/
http://citygallery.org.nz/
http://www.cablecarmuseum.co.nz/
http://www.getsporty.co.nz/index
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Wellington-New-Zealand/Wellington-City-Youth-Council/268731020626
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Wellington/Wellington-Regional-Aquatic-Centre/106792139357510?v=wall
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Wellington/Karori-Swimming-Pool/152693506006?v=wall
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Johnsonville-New-Zealand/Keith-Spry-Pool/78025336839
“And they would build on the goodwill which surrounds her election campaign”……..I beg your pardon.
1. Put a halt to the conversion of lower Cuba Street into a shared-street-cum-parking-lot: make it pedestrian only. Close the soon to be completed Manners Street to cars so that it is a true bus-way.
2. Start a bike friendly streets programme.
a) Stripe bike lanes on all of the main routes. Paint sharrows where there isn’t room.
b) Where roads are narrow: stripe bike lanes on the uphill sections to give cyclists space while they huff it uphill, and paint bike sharrows on the downhill sections to encourage cyclist to travel in the lane and discourage cars from dangerous passing.
c) Paint proper bike boxes with bike lanes leading to them at major intersections.
3. Initiate a complete streets initiative with the urban design team to ensure all new road reconfigurations or improvements properly consider and cater to all users of the streets.
4. Close Courtenay Place to cars during peak hours.
Pay off debt.
1) Increase the number of trolley buses, and cancel the Light Rail idea. The two are NOT compatible. We already have the infrastructure for the buses, and would need to remove this to develop a needless set of Trams (aka Light Rail Train-set).
2) Agree to NO rate increase or service cuts to essential services.
Fund any shortfalls by cutting back needless spending on Arts, etc. (which can and are supported by private businesses).
3) Cut wastage of ratepayer money on self-promotion.
ANon: Hey Kerry, why don’t you say that it is you writing this. Still feeling miffed that we don’t love you any more?
pedestrianize the northbound lane of Lambton Quay.
replace the light rail to the airport idea with a ‘driverless pod car’ track from waterloo quay round the bays to the airport.
http://www.ultraprt.com/
There may still be a few people around like myself who remember one of our former Mayors, Sir Frank Kitts. Yes, he that waterfront park is named after.
One of the things that always impressed us in Wadestown, was that each year Frank would come to our village often accompanied by the City Engineer. He wanted us to show him the issues or the ideas that we had for our community. We didn’t always get what we wanted, but we always knew that the Mayor was listening to us, and was aware of our community.
Tell us when you’re coming to Wadestown Celia and we’ll lay on the coffee and sticky buns at the Community Space. There’s even a bike park there for you.
The best way to improve traffic flow on our roads is not to build more, which only increases the traffic and parking problems, but to get as many people off the existing roads as possible and let those who really need to use cars or trucks get through town easily. The solution has to involve making those who insist on driving into town pay for somebody else to come in on public transport. Congestion tolling, petrol taxes and parking revenue can be earmarked for free public transport one the infrastructure is in place, and will help pay for the construction.
The Ultra at first glance looks like a neat idea but it fails to address the fundamental problem facing Wellington’s MRT needs; how to cater for “rush hours” when the vast majority of people are travelling in roughly the same direction, into the city in the morning and out of it in the evening. Ultra avoids the issue by calling itself a “last mile” or local feeder system, offloading the hard stuff to heavy rail or the like. So we still have to cope with transfers. Tram-train systems do it very well.