As we announced last week, BayBuzz is conducting a poll on big project spending in the region. You can take it here.
We want hundreds, thousands of voters to take the poll over the holiday
period. We plan to promote the poll to encourage a high “voter turnout.”
Meantime, here are some early returns on seven potential “big ticket”
items that are now floating around on Council Christmas lists:
- purchasing land for protection at Ocean Beach (an option Mayor Yule has floated while waiting for a land
valuation), - building a regional sports park,
- building the “Northern
Arterial Route” connecting Havelock North to the Expressway, - developing a new community of approx. 150 sustainable & affordable homes in West Flaxmere,
- rebuilding Hawke’s Bay Regional Hospital
- redeveloping the HB Museum and Art Gallery in Napier
- extending the runway at Napier Airport
Projects Strongly Oppose Leaning Oppose Leaning Support Strongly Support Undecided
Arterial Road 15% 16% 30% 34% 5%
Ocean Beach 8% 13% 20% 54% 5%
Land Purchase
Sports Park 48% 27% 15% 10% 0%
Airport Runway 32% 8% 27% 25% 8%
Rebuild Hospital 20% 12% 36% 22% 10%
Redevelop Museum 13% 25% 36% 22% 3%
Flaxmere Homes 7% 23% 28% 25% 18%
When we ask the public which project they would pick to proceed, if they could only pick one, these are the current results:
- 33% Ocean Beach land
- 19% Airport runway
- 16% Flaxmere homes
- 13% HB Hospital
- 11% Napier Gallery
- 2% Regional Sports Park
If these early returns hold up, it will be interesting to watch
Hastings Councillors continue to champion the regional sports park … almost half the respondents strongly oppose the project.
But BayBuzz is the first to caution that more survey responses need to come in before any project is declared a winner or loser. That’s
why we’re going to keep this poll open — and promote it — well into
January … about the time our elected officials return for duty.
We’ll report ongoing
results on these projects periodically during the weeks ahead.
So if you and your friends care passionately about one or another of
these projects — either “For” or “Against”, or just worry about
spending in general, BayBuzz urges you to get yourselves organized TO
TAKE THE SURVEY! It just takes a couple of minutes and you can do it online here.
Only one response per computer is accepted, so no individual can “stack the deck.” The only way to make
a big impact on the projects you care about is to get lots of folks to
vote. Tell your friends about the survey!
These projects will consume millions and millions of dollars. You
can sit back and hope for the best (and guess where that will get
you?!), or you can take this opportunity to sound off now, while these
projects are still on the drawing boards.
But this is not just an “anti-spending” poll … as the early
returns indicate, area ratepayers appear willing to open their
pocketbooks for some projects. Have YOUR say on which ones!
TAKE THE BAYBUZZ BIG PROJECT SPENDING POLL HERE.
Tom & Mark