Editorial: Murals earn Chorus of our approval

Chorus had artists paint their power boxes.

Rotorua has long been rightfully proud of its appearance.

In fact, we've been winning 'most beautiful city' awards since the 1990s.

So a small but effective campaign to liven up our neighbourhoods with Chorus cabinet art suits us just fine.

Eleven local roadside telecommunications cabinets are being spruced up by local artists with designs approved by Chorus, and the results are fantastic.

Subjects depicted so far include Jean Batten, Sir Howard Morrison and the Rotorua Museum Bath House.

The boxes tend to be dark green - a colour intended to discourage graffiti, but which also blends in nicely with surrounding foliage.

But that hasn't stopped the odd tagger having a go in the past.

As artist Chris Newman told us for this week's story, it's hoped the designs on the new-look cabinets will inspire taggers to take a different direction.

Certainly it would have to be a cold-hearted vandal who would even think of defacing our talented artists' works.

These murals will be admired and remembered for years.

I still remember the lakes painted on CBD boxes by Marc Spijkerbosch 20 years ago.

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As we report today, Rotorua district councillors have told us some of them have become gun-shy about spending in the wake of revelations in the past week about council debt.

Prudence is definitely called for, but as our representatives we expect councillors to make the right decisions in the best interests of the city, not necessarily choices that would provide short-term gain but long-term pain.

That said, lowering debt is clearly a priority that will involve tough choices all round, and it's good to see decisive action already.