Although the public were welcome to attend, they were manipulated and deceived in a display that was an absolute insult to the intelligence.
Failed MP Ron Mark, Carterton's latest Mayor, who follows in the footsteps of other idiots who have managed to get elected locally, such as Georgina Beyer and Gary McPhee, went on forever with all the 'apologies' of all his mates who couldn't be bothered coming, didn't ask if there were any other apologies of course, then proceeded to go on for two hours about how wonderful the Council was and how great it was that the community supported him and the Council, etc, etc. He proceeded to then talk about the farmers, and how wonderful his mate Ray Craig was.
Then there were various speakers, one after another, for about two hours. Some were alright, all were well meaning I think, but it went on and on without any opportunity for active public participation, and it was a big propaganda exercise with the speakers repeatedly stating that the Council and local individuals like Ray Craig were doing a wonderful job of preventing pollution of the Mangaterere - a blatant untruth. We had been asked to sign a form and were given a number when we arrived, and after all this talking had been going on for about an hour and a half or so, Ron Mark told us all to go and stand in the corner.
Apparently we were to go into four groups and discuss three questions which had been written on large sheets of paper in each corner of the room, and use little sticky notes to write our answer to the inane set questions on. Several people walked out of the meeting entirely at this point, well aware of what the real problems are and utterly sick of the obvious manipulation of the process of community dialogue. I followed the other sheep, and played the little game. Each group had a Council appointed "facilitator". We were firstly asked to introduce ourselves and say a bit about why we were at the meeting. As there were about 25 people in each group that took another 20 minutes or so. We were then given little sticky notes about two inches square and told to write our answers to the three questions on the sticky notes - a real indication of how much our views were valued, the questions were inane and the size of the paper provided was ridiculously small.
None of the questions mentioned or referred to the word "sewage", and up until that point, the meeting had been going for well over an hour and a half and nothing whatsoever had been said by anyone about sewage. Or the local piggery for that matter, they would probably be the second biggest polluter of the Mangaterere, but the Council sewage plant takes first place. They allow seasonal discharges of sewage into it as well as the regular - to the point of continuous - leaks and overflows. They meeting went on for two and a half hours before the subject of the sewage was mentioned, it was mentioned by me, and Ron Mark has issued me with trespass notices for all Council owned property in revenge for alerting the public to the fact that the Council had been charged in Court for discharging sewage into the Mangaterere, and hardly anyone at the meeting knew about it because Ron Mark was busy telling them all about how wonderful the Council was and making sure it wasn't mentioned.
On the 9th of December it was reported that the Carterton District Council has offered to pay $20,000 "donation" to the Greater Wellington Regional Council, after appearing in Court charged with illegally polluting a Wairarapa waterway.
On February 24th - when everyone and their kids were swimming in the river - Greater Wellington Council officers noticed the discharge of treated and partially treated human effluent to the Mangaterere stream at three different locations around the Council's sewage plant. The Mangaterere is a major tributary of the Waiohine River, which in turn flows into the Ruamahanga River, Wairarapa's largest waterway.
Residents have been complaining about this for years! The Mangaterere is consistently rated the most polluted waterway in the region - largely because it goes past the Carterton District Council sewage plant! There are unacceptably high levels of bacteria, nitrogen, phosphorous and other chemicals (I tried to get a copy of the reports from the Council yesterday morning, but was told they don't have them!)
Here is a link to the water quality standard website, where it shows that the quality of Carterton's water is rated "D" at one location, and "E" at two other locations. If you click either "Explain grading" or "Explain compliance in the sidebar on the left at that link, you can see that "D" is "Unsatisfactory" and "E" is rated "Unacceptable". This was two days prior to the meeting, the water is unacceptable. It's been unacceptable for years. [Update - 6 July 2012 - just been alerted to the fact that this site is no longer accessible - ratepayers and taxpayers have the right to know how their water is rated and how pure it is and whether it is acceptable to drink or not! Ring the ESR (government department, blue pages in the phone book) and ask them to sort it out!]
Another major contributor to the problem is the local piggery, this was also not mentioned once by Ron Mark or his mates. These matters were discussed with the quarter of the people at the meeting who I was able to speak with, then we all had to play musical chairs again and listen to the Council appointed facilitator of each group give a "summary" of the answers to the inane questions! I used to work for ACNielsen, a market research company, I've worked for advertising companies, etc, and I can tell BS when I see it. Once again, sewage hardly got a mention, or the pig farm, because everything had been so carefully staged to get everyone talking about what a wonderful job the Council and Ray Craig were doing and how we could all help them. By the time all that was finished we'd all been sitting in the uncomfortable chairs for so long listening to this rubbish everyone just wanted to go home.
I put my hand up and asked how many people were aware of the report and it appeared hardly anyone was. I then asked Ron Mark when we were going to get the full information regarding the state of the sewage system, what he was going to do about the leaks at the identified locations, when he was going to do it (as he had indicated he intended doing absolutely nothing until the upcoming holidays are over - March he said!), and how much it was going to cost to do that, and how much it was going to cost in the longer term to bring the sewage plant up to scratch.
Ron Mark refused to answer any of these questions. Every single one of them. He huffed and puffed and postured, and stuttered and stammered, and then said "Are you Kate Raue?" As if it mattered who I was! I'm not the only one sick of Ron Mark's political manipulation - here's a link to a Carterton ratepayer who seems to live in Masterton, who also has a local sewage problem, and here's a link to an article titled "Farmer's Slime Fury" - "Mr Tatham says for five years his water troughs have been filling with a thick green slime, caused by nutrient growth from treated wastewater entering his bore. "They've been pumping sewage straight into the water table and we end up with a green scum in our water troughs that's obviously sewage slime. "In the summer months the slime can get up to six inches deep and while the house is on town supply the stock have no choice but to drink it." He said when he initially complained to the council it offered to supply town water for his animals. "But then they went silent for three or four months, and when they got back to us they said the water was running the other way. "They should be totally ashamed of what they're doing - how anyone can pump sewage into the town's ground water is unbelievable."This gets better, have a read of the article at this link, titled "Carterton Boundary Stack Fuels Dispute", note the photo. Now read this article, titled "Carterton Farmer: It's All a Stack Up" and you'll see that it's actually the reporters at the local paper and Ron Mark who are the ones fuelling the dispute, having completely made it up in the first place - talk about delusional! Instead of attending to the sewage problems Ron Mark has been carrying on about a few bales of silage that aren't bothering anyone except one woman apparently!
Carterton Silage Bylaw Slammed 11 May 2011
Carterton Bylaw in Balance 9 June 2011
Carterton Silage Row Deepens 15 June 2011
"Former Carterton District Councillor Chris Engel said it seemed Carterton Mayor Ron Mark had a "personal vendetta" against him, describing a mayoral appeal to dairy co-op Fonterra as "an abuse of power". Ron Mark is famous for his little vendettas against local individuals who attempt to engage in democracy and share information in the public interest, and extremely manipulative of the media, and the gullibility of the general public.
In an email last week Mr Mark called on Fonterra to intervene in the dispute, saying in it was "only a very fine line now between Fonterra inaction and indifference". "If Fonterra chooses to do nothing, then we will be able to say, on behalf of the people of the Carterton district, we tried." - worrying about a few bales of silage that aren't bothering anyone, while he's tipping partly treated human effluent into our river!!!
"Fonterra spokesman Rick Osborne said the company was aware of the issue and the area manager had been in contact with Mr Engel on several occasions. We expect our shareholders and suppliers to be aware of community concerns."
Ron Mark is an odious little man, and thoroughly deceitful. He was deviously ushered into the job to finish what Beyer and McPhee were sacked for starting - read about the Whorehouse Fiasco here. He certainly does have a vendetta against Chris Engel, the same as Gary McPhee and Georgina Beyer and others had a vendetta against me, they bully political opponents because they can, trespassing us them from public spaces in order to prevent us sharing information, and using their control of such public facilities to spread slander and propaganda.
I'm clearly not the only one who smells a sneaky little rat at the Wairarapa Times-Age, making a mountain out of a harmless stack of baleage, at least Stu Sowry and Frank Riley have some sense, and confirm the view of the majority, that Ron Mark and his Councillors, who corruptly closed the former Carterton Community Centre to build the widely opposed Event Centre.
It's been reported that the Palmerston North City Council is responsible for polluting the Manawatu River. This pollution is becoming common practise for Councils apparently.
Check out your local water supply at this link, and if it's not up to scratch, particularly if it's rated "Unacceptable" - STOP PAYING YOUR WATER RATES UNTIL IT IS ACCEPTABLE. Here's the link to Ron Mark's Council's application to dump sewage into our river - only granted because if it wasn't the town would have no sewage disposal plan according to the panel - and only granted - conditionally - for three years and not the five requested - a damning decision from a Council that spent over six million on 'restructuring' the Carterton Community Centre into an Event Centre that for the benefit of the same people who ripped off the Community Centre and closed it down.
Ron Mark managed to con himself some more free advertising with this piece of propaganda under the guise of Nigel Latta's tv program - full of vague innuendo, glossing over the reality - that Ron Mark is every bit the manipulative bully and criminal low life this astonishing piece of propaganda fancifully suggests that his brother is, Ron's just got friends in the media.
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