Sadly, the Hundertwasser Art Museum will be an election issue in Whangarei.
Residents have been updated this week with a progress report and timeline which notes that the right boxes are well on the way to being ticked. But the existing council is keen to note that the final decisionlies with the incoming council.
(Groundhog Day, anyone?)
A cynic - and there are plenty associated with the Hundertwasser project - would observe that councillors do not want to vote on the matter now and risk losing their jobs in October. If that's the case then the decision to leave the final decision to the incoming council is weak and meek.
Councillors are elected to make decisions about the future of the district.
Strong, assertive, positive, informed, intelligent and sometimes controversial decisions.
To leave the final decision on the table for the new council only places the project at higher risk and suggests a lack of confidence in several areas. Re-election being one, but we now have to ask is confidence in the success of the project also a factor?
The longer people are left to consider that the Hundertwasser Art Centre has no "sense of place" in relation to Whangarei, and is a late, expensive but economically viable seizure of an opportunity to build a tourism honey pot, the greater chance that it will fail.
The HAC remains something that will benefit this town. It also remains something that the longer it takes, the less patience supporters will have for the project, and their councillors.
As the election approaches, the last thing Whangarei needs is someone elected on the basis of what they will not do. It would be refreshing to see the mayoral race won and councillors elected on their individual calibre, and not the sharpness of their Hundertwasser sword.
