Letter To Manukau – Friday, 5 February 2010

I wish you all the very best for a peaceful and prosperous 2010.

This is a bitter sweet year - the last of the civic life in Manukau city as we know it and the first of a united Auckland.

The establishment of Manukau city in 1965 was heralded in New Zealand with much hope and expectation of a bright future, strong development and caring outward-looking communities for the new city.

A clear vision of economic growth and community development, innovation and commitment has built this city. Our civic pride is the product of all those great virtues. I want us to hold that pride high, embellish it, strengthen it and deliver our community to the new Auckland Council in its very best state.

Pride has been a central theme of my leadership as mayor of this city.

I have encapsulated it in a simple vision for our communities' revitalisation and progress – 'Clean, tidy, proud'. To achieve this vision we focus on what Rudy Giuliani, former Mayor of New York City, referred to as "sweating the small stuff". This was coined to specifically get on top of some of the old community challenges that had confounded us over the decades, one of the most prominent being graffiti.

Under this council's leadership - and I acknowledge Councillor Dick Quax in particular and the passion and hard work of the Manukau Beautification Trust - we have focussed on this problem. We have succeeded in that we have reduced the incidence of graffiti across our city by 70 per cent in the last two and a half years.

Behind this drive to rid ourselves of graffiti and to be clean and tidy is a more important community theme. We are defining our community's boundaries of responsibility. We are making it clear what we will and will not accept in our community and that united we can deal with these problems, overcome them, and add to our pride and our positive perception of our city. These boundaries also set social parameters for our young people to see, acknowledge and accept.

We have complimented these boundaries of behaviour by stating a clear vision for achievement for our young people based around a number of aspirational markers. We have taken a whole of community approach by emphasising education and working with the educational community in ensuring the very best of opportunities for our children.

I acknowledge Councillor Colleen Brown for the strength of her work in leading the increasing provision of early childhood care centres, where there are shortfalls in our community, to ensure that we lift our Pacific and Maori attendances for youngsters at pre-school.

We have been working closely with the tertiary sector to ensure that we not only have the excellent service of MIT and Te Wananga o Aotearoa, but also the development of the new university under the leadership of AUT. A new tertiary campus built above and around the new train station at Manukau's city centre, will see MIT leading the initial development, with the possibility of other university entities being included on the campus.

We regard as central our community's health and physical well-being. The Find Your Field of Dreams project, under the leadership of Councillor Sir John Walker, is putting a simple vision of hope and action before our young people - that every young person should be active and involved in sport and recreation.

We have supported our musical community through the Manukau Symphony Orchestra, the Manukau Youth Orchestra and the contemporary sound of Dawn Raid, Malford and Savage, sharing with our young people their musical talent, encouraging it and presenting it as a pathway for a potential glittering career. To watch the flowering of the creative design talent of our young people though the Villa Maria Cult Couture Awards has also been inspirational.

We have attempted through our educational, sporting, cultural and artistic goals to provide the optimum platform for our young people to go on to tertiary education, training, employment, or business and to create great careers and lives for themselves.

So, I am pleased, but not surprised that following recent trends, criminal activity in our city was down nine per cent overall during the last three months of 2009. As a community we are accepting no less and offering more alternatives.

I want to acknowledge the great effort of Counties Manukau Police District Commander Mike Bush and his team, complimented by our wardens, ambassadors, youth workers and community crime patrols. Together, they are the guardians of our civic pride.

In Manukau, our hopes, dreams and our future have been nothing but blue sky. Through this year, we want to continue that path to affirm our strength, our pride and celebrate our achievements. I am confident that we can take the very best of who we are and of what we have become through to Auckland with pride.

Tomorrow, I will be attending Waitangi Day celebrations at Barry Curtis Park in Botany and in other parts of the city and region. It is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate what is widely regarded as our national day. I hope to see some of you at the various events and bring you some of my thoughts on this special day, in my next letter.

Enjoy your week.

Len Brown
Mayor of Manukau

ENDS

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