KEY POINTS:
Waitakere Mayor Bob Harvey is pleading with his city's insurer to make a quick decision on whether it will fight widow Colleen Dicks for her $250,900 leaky home payout.
Mr Harvey wants RiskPool, which insures 82 councils, to abandon action against Mrs Dicks, who was awarded the money by a High Court judge in December.
Instead, he wants Mrs Dicks to get the money and for the council to apologise for its faults that resulted in leaks at her Hobsonville home.
He says that at least RiskPool should decide now whether it is going ahead with its appeal, so Mrs Dicks will not be left in suspense.
RiskPool's board is to meet on February 28 to decide whether to proceed with a Court of Appeal challenge.
In a letter to RiskPool, Mr Harvey said: "Can I implore you and your fellow directors to at least bring this to a hasty conclusion, for Mrs Dicks' sake.
"Surely 21st century technology allows a conference call or something similar so you can make a swift call on whether the appeal will go ahead and then, at the very least, Mrs Dicks won't have to wait another two or three weeks before learning of her fate.
"Believe me, for Mrs Dicks and others in her position, every day with something like this hanging over them feels like a month."
RiskPool's notice of appeal was lodged to ensure it had the option of going back to court but the board is yet to give its final stamp of approval.
The insurer's chairman, Michael Ross, refused to comment on the Dicks case or on the number of rotting house cases RiskPool had settled.
Radio talkback host and Wanganui Mayor Michael Laws said he and Radio Live would contribute to Mrs Dicks' legal costs, calling for the case to be settled before it got to court.
"There needs to be a definitive ruling on liability so that Colleen and 40,000 other homeowners can get on with their lives," he said.
Mrs Dicks said she was heartened by the support. "I'm absolutely overwhelmed. Isn't it splendid?"
She has been staying in Australia, but is returning to Auckland on Tuesday to meet lawyers.
She will live with her daughter in Balmoral.
She says her legal fees are "tens of thousands of dollars" but found it hard to give exact costs because the fight had been going on for so long.
Lawyer Paul Grimshaw said Mrs Dicks' bill had been trimmed.
"We realised that when she came to see us she was in difficult financial circumstances, so we have written off time all the way through this case," he said.
"We believed there were substantial matters of principle involved, and we sympathised with her situation."
* Anyone wanting to contribute to the Colleen Dicks' appeal fund should email johngray-lhag@xtra.co.nz. Money can also be mailed to John Gray, PO Box 47-281, Ponsonby.
What Readers Said
* Please let me know where I can donate a few dollars to help. Like the rest of you I am tired that councils can hide from their responsibility.
* Saw the email address in the Herald. I'll give $100 towards her legal bill. What a pack of dishonourable bastards they [council] all are.
* Shame on the people and institutions in this country who have sat by and allowed this injustice to happen. I would like to contribute $100 to Mrs Dicks' defence (and would like to contribute some more later for her in the awful event that the RiskPool succeeds.)
