I refer to your article of 3/8/2010 regarding the Petition initiated at Waihi Beach to shift that Ward from Western Bay of Plenty District Council to Hauraki District Council.
1006 residents (approx 40%) signed that Petition supporting the move. The Council has unilaterally reduced the number of allowable names to 788 without any explanation or independent scrutiny.
On 27 July, public submissions on the Petition closed. Of the 129 submissions received, one containing 363 signatures opposed to the Petition got the Mayor, Ross Patterson excited. His quoted response was, 'The other side has now come forward. We now have a total picture of what the community is thinking up there, and I think there's a very strong message that the community is quite happy where they are, being in the Western Bay area and oppose any change of the boundary.”
I heartily agree with the Mayor although the picture I see differs from his own. It has taken 7 months to collect those 363 signatures as opposed to the 10 days it took to collect 1006 signatures. In desperation to create the illusion of widespread opposition, one person has signed at least 7 times and others come from as far away as Christchurch for others. Which ever way you look at it, the support for the move is at worst more than 2 to 1 in favour of opting out of WBOPDC and at best somewhat more than that. And in a democracy, that's a majority Mr Patterson.
Brian Hepenstall,
Petition Organiser, Waihi Beach.