Letters: No time to be negative

Destination Rotorua consumer marketing manager Tom Worsp launches the council's new campaign to bring Aucklanders to Rotorua to live. PHOTO/FILE

H Brasser (Letters, October 22) chides council for spending $200,000 on promoting Rotorua to the people of Auckland.

I like many progressive councillors and ratepayers are tired of the negativity, the sector who moaned when Rotorua wasn't growing, when unemployment was 18% and shops and industry were leaving Rotorua in their droves, crime was rising, thugs in the CBD etc.

Rotorua people aren't blind and now with the Rotorua economy attracting new business, new jobs, new residents some still moan, criticise and try to undermine the efforts of those who love Rotorua, want it to grow and be on the path to a vibrant community that embraces all comers.

Thank you to the editor of the Daily Post and your reporters highlighting the positive, growth aspects and the dynamic young people and the doers in other parts of the Saturday edition. What about the work done at Kuirau Park, our gardens, parks, playgrounds, trails, sport fields all getting used and enjoyed long may it continue. Your right to be negative is protected Mr Brasser and your co writers, but really!

CHARLES STURT
Rotorua district councillor

What evidence is there to support your correspondent's allegation that "Most of the land grab was done by the churches"? (Letters October 21).

The Crown confiscated very large areas of land in Taranaki, Waikato, the Bay of Plenty and the East Coast. The churches on the other hand had neither the means nor the desire to confiscate land. Some churchmen bought land, and some were given land, but those transactions while significant did not remotely compare in scale to the Crown confiscations, and in any case they cannot be fairly categorised as a "land grab".

If any land can be shown to have been "grabbed" by my church, it will either be returned to its rightful owners, or I will be looking for a new place to worship on Sundays.

GEOFF FISCHER
Rotorua