The Innovation Quarter, home to Whanganui and Partners.
The Innovation Quarter, home to Whanganui and Partners.
Flogging a dead economic horse
We are flogging a dead horse. It's cruel and it has to stop. The Whanganui District Council's economic development agency, Whanganui & Partners, was set up with the best of intentions, but it was destined for failure. To be honest, the history of council economicdevelopment agencies in New Zealand has been disaster after disaster.
Because of the high profile this agency receives, citizens and local business groups expect W&P to do the impossible, with a very limited budget. While $2.5 million to $3m may sound like a lot, after wages and running expenses are taken into account there really isn't a huge amount left to spend on promoting Whanganui to the world. We are pushing it uphill, regardless of how wonderful Whanganui is.
The knives seem to be out for this agency at the moment and we have seen CEO after CEO leave the organisation. I was especially disappointed to see Mark Ward leave the job. He was a very capable person with a lot of experience and always came across very professionally. But even he did not satisfy a few outspoken groups around town.
The time has come to close W&P as an entity and take it back in-house to the Whanganui District Council. This way, the spotlight will be taken off economic development as such, but staff will still work just as hard at promoting economic development, even if our councillors will want to poke their noses in too much.
This way we will only have one organisation to blame for all our woes. Something the Whanganui District Council is quite used to and quite capable of handling. The idea of a standalone economic agency is wonderful in principle … just like communism … it just don't work Comrade.
STEVE BARON Whanganui
Your letters
Having the choice
Yet again I find it necessary to challenge a correspondent who fails to accept that his beliefs are not necessarily those of others. Welcome to the real world, KA Benfell (Letters, July 9).
I have no idea who you are, your age nor your physical state, nor your religious convictions. However, your comments in the referenced Chronicle require a challenge ...
When the time comes for a person to depart this mortal coil, there are several ways to go. Perhaps the best is to pass while asleep, although what actually happens during that departure is unknown. Instant death due to accident or some other means is next.
Then comes the palliative care scenario whereby a person is so drugged that the likelihood of pain is remote and so is their ability to interact with loved ones, until a member of the care team increases the dose of morphine and achieves a result. Finally there are those who die in extreme pain or discomfort and cause huge emotional pain for their loved ones who have to witness such a cruel death.
What makes you an expert, you may ask of me? Well, I'll tell you. I have a terminal condition that is not going to be very flash at the end, even with palliative care. I want to go at a time of my choosing by a method that I choose and that maintains the personal dignity that I have managed to achieve throughout my life. You and your equally misguided euthanasia opponents have absolutely no right to influence the manner of my passing.
I would thank you to butt out and concentrate on your own method of ceasing to exist and leave mine to me alone. [Abridged]
D PARTNER Whanganui
Editor's note: Correspondence on this aspect of the issue is now closed, though the Chronicle will continue to examine this key referendum topic and will consider letters on new angles as they arise.
