Creative impresarios Craig Jamieson at the Jam Factory, Sonya Korohina at Supercut Projects, Kalena Egan of Okorore Gallery, and young film-maker Sam Tomaszyk are nurturing how we express ourselves and build a creative community.
Add artists, carvers, performers, writers, festival producers and creative businesses, and Tauranga will become Aotearoa's most interesting place.
Creative Bay of Plenty's role is to be involved in their work and that mission: to connect people, develop creative powers, support and promote, and merge the arts with civic developments.
Cultural experiences enrich our lives, build social cohesion, and make our city more resilient. The arts are essential to our city and our organisation, and are at the core of each and every one of us. (Abridged)
Eric Holowacz
General manager, Creative Bay of Plenty
RB loans could fix roads
Regarding the poor quality and inadequate roads in and around Tauranga – development fees on new subdivisions, although substantial, are insufficient to develop and maintain the roads.
Maybe the Reserve Bank should provide interest-free loans to the city targeted to upgrade and improve the roads, and widen them to cope with the demands of increasing volumes of present-day multi-modal vehicle movements.
When this work is done, the city should then put a toll on the roads to repay the loans.
It may well be that some councils would be tardy in repaying that loan, so as with normal business practice a surcharge should be imposed for late payment.
Increased productivity and improved quality of life can only benefit all citizens.
V Brazier
Tauriko
School fails on climate action
It seems many people in our community continue to behave as they have always done - as though our changing climate has nothing to do with them on a personal level.
I went for a walk to a park and was concerned to see an almost endless convoy of cars carrying adults and children to the park.
Very soon, all available parks were taken, and still more cars arrived.
They parked on the grass and anywhere they could and shouldn't.
It was apparent a school outing had been arranged.
My point is, why did this school not hire a bus?
One vehicle and one set of emissions would have messaged to the children that this was the least harmful option to cater for the outing. I am amazed that the school did not consider this, and instead allowed such inconsideration to prevail.
The point of teaching is to educate and to learn how to cope in a changing world.
On the face of it, this school, in my view, has failed.
Sally Quaddel
Tauranga
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