Now and then you publish letters from ratepayers moaning about the heavy burden amenities put on them. Poor old buggers.
But we're all entitled to moan, so if you want to be a hick in Hicksville, go ahead. Reject anything at all that will bring added value to city living here in Tauranga. We've only been waiting for a museum since April 1938, for example...
Let's not plant flowers or trees, put up statues, maintain sports parks or the Art Gallery, or hang on to our historic buildings. The Hot Pools that have been a tourist draw for decades must go and The Mount should be fenced off and left to the sheep.
These aren't things we need, after all, and according to such moaning minnies what we need is all that matters. We can live as happily in a bleak grey cityscape, using the time once wasted on going to the Library or Baywave in cackling over the money we're saving now by not going anywhere or doing anything much. (abridged)

Jenny Argante, Gate Pa.