To the assembled Ohope Beach voters and interested attendees
Sunday 27/8/22
With regard to tomorrows belatedly advertised Local Government “Meet the Candidates” event in Bluett Road, Ohope Beach and my only just finding out about it
Whilst I would really like to attend, I am not allowed in the Ohope Charter Club or “the jug” as I have called the Ohope Chartered Club for decades due to the violence that has occurred including one I have been forced to break up. Pool cues being the example. Alcohol is a drug no less and it causes much harm in our community. As do the pokies.
Additionally, and now to the co-providers of tomorrow’s meeting The Ohope Lions Club International Inc.
If I was to walk in and due to the presence of this well-known gang that operates with both Police and Whakatane District Council protection, I would need personal security or a sharpened long handled steel implement equivalent to that that was used by a known gang member upon my person on the Maraetotara Reserve. [Currently only vested in the Whakatane District Council – Not owned by] Not forgetting I was your Bay of Plenty Conservation Board Chairperson at the time of these incidents [Note plural] This gang has its own pad, own regalia, ignores the law, puts up white burial crosses on the reserve, has three lawyers involved, two in the United States of America and one locally. As it mets out violence, [not forgetting the bullying and abuse] it so fits the description of a “gang”. Mostly white and supreme in belief. The money they receive from the Ohope Community should be spend where the Ohope Lions Club International Club Inc. say it is, & not unnecessarily on expensive lawyers.
You have been questioned by the Whakatane Police and as many as ten of your members been required to supply statements about an event that took place on the Maraetotara Reserve involving your use of a long handled sharpened steel implement upon my person. The N Z Police Whakatane branch advise that they “inadvertently” lost your statements [Yeah right!] However, as you provided them and they have an Official information Act 1982 request from me for them, re-provide them or show your continued disdain for the community you currently take your name from and the law and order that in the normal course of events would/could/should exist in Ohope Beach. It is not safe for me to walk the streets where your members move about or congregate. You should display a fit and proper willingness to cooperate again with the New Zealand Police and “resupply”, note “resupply”, your statements. What sort of moral breakdown exists in your minds to refuse to cooperate with the N Z Police? [For the readers clarification. The Police investigate criminal matters.] So, to this established “gang” go to your clubs and members files and hard drives and get your existing statements to the Police as they have egg all over their faces for supposedly, note supposedly, losing them in the first place. Supposedly, somewhere between “Rotorua and Whakatane.” The Police show a lacking the testicular fortitude to walk upstairs to the room above and alongside to where the exposed “gang” holds its monthly meeting, from tomorrow’s meetings, are going on, and collect these statements. “Seize” their records if need be. These statements provided by the Ohope Lions Club are needed for subsequent judicial proceeding So not only are this “gang” refusing to cooperate with the Police they are holding up other legal proceedings. Justice delayed is justice denied
Next, I went to the last Ohope Beach Community Board meeting in Whakatane [Imagine if you will the Ohope Community Board meeting in another town] and it was a shambles. I was given the fourth degree upon arriving and two thirds through my introduction, for my allowed 4-6 minutes, a Community Board member to my left, female, small of stature, middle aged, and with greying hair incredibly forgot her manners and rudely interrupted me. This was followed by a consistent period of interruption by all and sundry, when their ongoing and unaddressed failings where exposed, and from that you can conclude that the Chairwoman had lost all control of the meeting [The balance of other speakers were allowed to speak totally uninterrupted prior to taking questions from the assembled elected representatives]
This Ohope Community Board sham of a meeting was attended by our Mayor who will remain famous for all the wrong reasons when she spoke at the recent Anzac RSA breakfeast and spoke about respect for the women who had served. No mention of the 700 men who died daily plus another 1500 wounded daily in Northern France for starters. I repeat for starters.
At this last meeting of the Ohope Community Board I asked for copies of the minutes. Because they were not supplied at all, and certainly not in a timely matter, the matter now rests with the Minister of Local Government, Nanaia Mahuta and the Ombudsman Peter Boshier. Remember at this meeting at which this lawful request was made were all the members of the Ohope Community Board plus Mayor & Mayoral candidate Turner, Councillor and Mayoral candidate John Pullar and Councillor and Mayoral candidate Lesley Immink [there were some apologies]
I had tried to get Mayor Turner, Councillor’s Immink and Luca to provide me with the date that they gave the “special people” of the gated community permission to cut their own swath through protected dunes put down foundations followed by fences and wide enough for a decent sized bulldozer to utilise. Abject failure was the result by all three elected representatives.
I told the Ohope Community Board, Mayor & Councillors present that not all members of the public and Local Government election voters were allowed to go to the “Charty” They need to clean their ears out and listen. There is a perfectly good public hall, called the Ohope Beach hall available for public needs at which all, note all, persons can attend right next door. Shame on you for knowingly excluding a voter, ratepayer “Greenie” and rightfully concerned citizen
To summarise. How can it be other than you will have a cohort of candidates in front of you, in addition to applauding violence on the publicly owned Maraetotara Reserve [you can see it out the window now], only currently vested in the Whakatane District Council and most if not all of them cannot deny that they have no regard for the information that should be made readily available to the public or in the case of Mayor & Candidate J Turner and Councillors & Candidates Pullar and Immink are non-law-abiding elected representatives?
For clarity in my view a gang in Ohope Beach should be disbanded
I have asked Glen Smith the local radio station owner and manager personally and on his stations Facebook page some time ago to give us our two 15–30-minute talk back radio twice weekly times back but he is a fence sitter/ditherer. That is perhaps why his radio station is sometimes called one double cross?
If any of the candidates have god helping them making their mind up, please declare so as I don’t believe he exists and no one can show anyone else where he lives, doesn’t pay any rates or taxes and as such has no role in local government matters.
I remind you of the recent female Philipino Journalist & Nobel Prize winner Maria Resser who made famous the expression
“ Without facts, you can’t have truth. Without truth, you can’t have trust. Without trust, we have no shared reality, no democracy,”
I like “vigilance is the price of freedom” and “to do nothing about discrimination is to condone it”
Wake up Ohope Residents, get motivated, get registered and get voting
Also you cant just have a gang turning up and commencing developments on a public reserves or erecting a white cross like you would expect to find at a cemetery because you think it is ok. Just bullies the lot of you
Let’s see what the Minister and the Ombudsman have to say This is a smidgeon of what is available
To all the candidates [Regional Council candidates aside] I asked the following question.
Which of you would not resolve to have the Ohope Lions Club International Inc re-provide the statements they gave to the police as requested as a result of an event that took place on the Maraetotara Reserve on Pohutukawa Avenue to enable the N Z Police to comply with /adhere to the law of N Z?
Gordon Dickson “No Nukes” “Greenie” former chair of the Green Environmental Society 1989 based in Ohope Beach.
E. & O. E.