Your view: Readers get it off their chest

FLYING VISIT: Barack Obama came to the country for golf and a chat.

Squatters' law?

A few years ago, your front page announced apartments to be built at Castlecliff, with a picture of a smart, modern block, maybe four storeys high.

What a great idea, I said, and told several people about it, until they said "Look at the date". April fool!

And recently I heard of yet another couple who want to buy an apartment or small house, within walking distance of town and of low-maintenance materials.

So many people looking for the same thing, and meanwhile the old Chronicle offices and the travel centre, prime sites, standing empty, and a "temporary" car yard expanding along the waterfront.

Does "squatters' law" apply in New Zealand?

ANGELA STRATTON, Durie Hill

Obama visit

May I congratulate Chronicle columnists Steve Braunias and Kate Stewart for their articles in the Saturday Chronicle of March 24.

They illustrated perfectly what a joke this trip by former US president Barack Obama has been - half a day with the Prime Minister; two days with the ex-PM (aka the Phantom Banker).

This ex-Prime minister who couldn't face a loss in the last election so resigned instead.

After leaving politics he has used his position within Air New Zealand to finance this ego trip, along with a chosen few, to a bit of golf and a bloody expensive dinner and interview.

If this staged interview had been broadcast for all to see, maybe my attitude would have been different, but I doubt it.

A BARRON, Aramoho

Regional rates

Re: Rift over regional rates (Chronicle, March 5);

Congratulations to regional councillor David Cotton for protecting us from the Regional Mayoral Forum (which includes the chairman of Horizons).

Whanganui mayor Hamish McDouall is out of touch with hard-pressed city ratepayers.

Ratepayers need to be aware that if mayor McDouall gets his way, you may end up part-funding an enlarged Arena Manawatu stadium (Palmerston North/Manawatu District); a clean-up of Lake Horowhenua (Horowhenua District) plus a wastewater system for Dannevirke (Tauraua District), and assistance for tourism in Ruapehu (Ruapehu District).

These so-called regional projects may have changed, but they were the projects while I was a regional councillor.

David Cotton seems to be, once again, a voice in the wilderness, as one of our regional councillors supports us paying for other districts' water and land management (and I suspect any other environmental issues that may pop up).

Ruapehu and Whanganui only have three regional councillors on a 12-seat council. The voting power of Palmerston North/Manawatu and Feilding/Rangitikei would be enough to move the Manfeild race track above our velodrome track.

While I was on the regional council, a group suggested a fishing ramp and facilities at the mouth of the Whanganui River would be a great "regional facility". Four councillors owned boats that fished out of Whanganui. That could happen again - so bad luck velodrome track.

Move away from the regional fund concept, otherwise it will bury our city in higher regional rates.

■Edited

BOB WALKER, Former Horizons Regional Councillor, St John's Hill

Fluoride sources

Some New Zealand communities get great benefit from calcium fluoride found naturally in their drinking water, in concentrations of 2 to 3 parts per 10 million.

The Whanganui council could provide residents with water just like this by adding about 25 cents worth of pharmaceutical grade 99.999 per cent pure calcium fluoride to every tonne of water they provide.

The four million tonnes or so of water the WDC supplies each year would cost ratepayers about $1 million to fluoridate.

Some councils have a much cheaper option, using fluoride wastes from the industrial plants co-operatively owned by farmers to produce superphosphate for their farms.

These factories also produce poisonous gases hydrogen fluoride and silicon tetrafluoride. To stop killing half the good people living nearby, water is sprayed into the factory chimneys and a solution of hydro-fluoro-silicic acid is formed.

This toxic waste product is a bit difficult to dispose of, especially as the water sprayed into the chimneys also flushes traces of heavy metals into the acid. So it is practically given away to district councils to make town supply water with a fluoride content of about 7 parts per 10 million, plus a dash of arsenic, mercury, cadmium and lead on the side.

Low-dose fluoridation of town supply water with pure calcium fluoride is highly beneficial, and I'm all in favour of it, but high-dose fluoridation with toxic waste is mainly beneficial to the farmers who own those superphosphate plants.

JOHN ARCHER, Ohakune

Maori votes

The Maori Party has elected a new president, Che Wilson.

If he desires the success of his party, he has to work for the demise of the Maori seats because Maori who want to vote for Maori in those seats are effectively voting Labour.

With a strong Maori representation in the main parties, their use-by date has arrived.

The removal of these seats would mean that Maori who vote on the Maori roll would vote Maori Party, and under an MMP parliamentary system that is where the Maori votes should be.

G R SCOWN, Whanganui