Swampy Marsh's May Newsletter

Swampy Marsh's May Newsletter

Hi Wellington, I hope you don’t mind me dropping you this newsletter.

Out now the 2013 Draft Annual Plan; it includes some ideas for council savings and additional spending. I am keen to hear your thoughts on these proposals before 16th May when submissions close.

Some of the proposals you may want to consider are:

Should council invest in “Smart Energy” initiatives? Ideas like offering homeowners a subsidy for solar energy retrofits.

Should we be charging taxis for the use of dedicated taxi ranks, council is suggesting a fee of around $8/week.

Should we recover costs for running the Kilbirnie aquatic centre crèche it would mean charging $3-$4 per hour?

The full plan is available at Miramar and Kilbirnie libraries or WCC.govt.nz

The Miramar Town Centre upgrade is now underway, the toilet will no longer be the centre of attention, it will be a more subtle structure beside the Miramar Vet. Council’s project manager Kevin Murphy will be sending weekly updates to town centre retailers let me know if we have missed you. Work should be finished mid-July; do you have any ideas of how we should celebrate the opening?

The Kilbirnie upgrade seems to have taken forever, the latest end date is now mid may. Crews are starting work at 4am, digging with hand tools to progress with minimum disruption to businesses. You may have noticed some cracked concrete, pooling water and loose pavers, council staff have noted these and will require them to be fixed once the main work is done.

The proposed change to the speed limit in Hataitai town centre will be discussed in council this week. Your submissions were both for and against, the point was made that idiots will still speed through the area and traffic generally did travel around 30k anyway. Do we need the additional legislation and cost of new signage?

Lyall Bay School does have some problems with motorists travelling too quickly along Freyberg St and Queens Drive. Council’s traffic specialists are working with the school on solutions. Speed bumps, pedestrian lights etc. have all been suggested to us but perhaps active school warning signs would be a good starting point?

FIXIT, it’s a council tool for you to send us messages about stuff we need to fix; tagging, potholes leaky pipes etc. It’s a free smart phone app that makes it simple to take a photo and send it direct to our call centre.

Finally, HELP perhaps you can help me in my election campaign really soon. I’m searching for fences or sites that I can put up signs, if you have any suggestions please let me know.

Keep in touch

Cheers

Simon "Swampy" Marsh
Wellington Councillor

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