If you were a paid subscriber, you would already have received your advance personal copy in the mail. Hint! Hint! (Here’s how)

You can get a copy of the Sep-Oct BayBuzz at Havelock, Hastings and Greenmeadows New Worlds, Napier Countdown and PaknSave, various 4 Squares and dairies, bookstores and other locations. Keep your eyes peeled.

Or, you can read the entire magazine, just as it appears in print with photos and ads, through this excellent online reader.

Or, you can go to the BayBuzz website to read particular articles and comment on them.

I hope you’ll find heaps to inform, entertain and provoke you in this edition of BayBuzz.

In fact, if one or another of our articles and columns doesn’t stir you stir up, we’re failing in our mission. I can tell you, there are a few issues in this edition that get me riled up.

One is the state of our rivers in Hawke’s Bay and the pace at which they’re not being improved. As I report in my own article, Water Pressure, over the next eighteen months, give or take, so many key water policy decisions are coming out of the Regional Council pipeline that environmentalists will drown in them.

Yes, these are definitely matters needing attending to; but their sheer number will outpace the ability of unpaid citizen watchdogs to protect the Bay’s environmental values. Frankly, many of us don’t expect the Regional Council to do so, unless it is watched and pressed every step of the way. And the policy decisions are just the precursor to real action.

Another aggravating issue is the head-in-the-sand attitude of the Napier and Regional Councils toward amalgamation. After all, they’re not being pushed to endorse any plan. They’re simply being asked to support a joint investigation of whether our region’s governance is organized as effectively as it could be to address the challenges facing the people of Hawke’s Bay.

HBRC Chair Fenton Wilson (no doubt busy protecting the Tuki) and Mayor Arnott (busy polishing Napier’s silver) declined to offer their views on amalgamation in these pages. What kind of leadership is that from the ‘leaders’ of these councils? As Lawrence Yule says in his article, “Are they scared, apathetic, or worst of all … comfortable?

Napier’s elected leaders say effectively, “We’re perfect, the rest of the Bay can go to hell!” But Kathy Webb’s article, Napier, reveals that it’s not all milk and honey in Art Decoland.

If you read Douglas Lloyd Jenkins worried about Boomers over-running the Bay, Paul Paynter lamenting New Zealand’s alcohol binge, and David Trubridge warring with capitalism, you might find yourself looking for some comfort!

You can find some good news about health care in Napier, innovative education-to-work programmes right here in Hawke’s Bay schools, successful online merchants selling from here in the Bay to the world, and some ‘returnees’ to the Bay who are thrilled to be back … and making a difference.

There’s more in BayBuzz than I can tease you with here. But as usual, if you really need immediate relief from the vexing issues of the day, jump right to Fallen Arches by Brendan Webb and get inside the head of Ronald McDonald (a late Boomer, born in 1963), as he prepares to open the Havelock North addition to the franchise!

Tom Belford

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1 Comment

  1. the latest edition of the magazine is looking great , Tom, and is already a quantum leap forward from the previous issue…keep up the good work !

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