Letters to the Editor: TikTok, rates and the stadium

Airfield and playground. PHOTO: GERRIT DOPPENBERG
Airfield and playground. PHOTO: GERRIT DOPPENBERG
Today's Letters to the Editor from readers cover topics including social media conspiracies, clarity around the ORC building, and the financial future of our stadium.

 

He does not like what he does not agree with

There is an interesting symmetry between Dr Olivier Jutel’s ideas about the rise of a political "hysteria and moral panic" over TikTok, and Jutel’s own ideas about the role of the United States (ODT 16.1.25).

On the one hand, Jutel sees nothing "weird" in TikTok, and is "shocked" that political forces are creating a bogeyperson out of a harmless social media app. For Jutel, those who find TikTok sinister are succumbing to something like McCarthyism, and entering a paranoid world of conspiracy theories.

Yet on the other hand, Jutel himself indulges in the same kind of conspiratorial thinking, when he asserts that the internet and US tech companies are connected with the US national security apparatus and are used as "geopolitical weapons."

Jutel’s conspiracy theory deepens as he invokes the anti-Semitic trope of an "Israel lobby" with a disproportionate political influence.

There may or may not be some truth in any of these conspiracy theories.

But it is clear Jutel’s objections are not to conspiracy theories per se, but only to those conspiracy theories that he disagrees with.

Malcolm Moncrief-Spittle
Dunedin

 

Clarity sought

Most ratepayers would accept the need for employees of a publicly funded body such as the Otago Regional Council to be housed efficiently in premises of an acceptable standard. The new building would certainly seem to achieve that.

The cost overruns reported (ODT 9.12.24) have attracted some debate.

Given the somewhat incestuous relationship between Port Otago (as both the landlord and a wholly owned subsidiary of the ORC) and the ORC (as the tenant), it would be helpful to know if independent advisers were appointed to ensure the lease agreement was fair and reasonable to all parties, including the ratepayers as the ultimate funders.

The ORC should also reveal the difference between existing lease costs and the lease costs for the new building.

Clarification of the above would allow a more informed debate.

D Sharp
St Clair

 

[ORC finance general manager Nick Donnelly responds: "A lease agreement hasn’t been entered into yet. Council and Port have entered into a Heads of Agreement for Port to develop the building and formal lease agreement to be entered into on completion of that development. Council obtained independent legal advice when entering into the Heads of Agreement.

As stated in previous press releases, the Heads of Agreement includes an initial lease cost of $2.59 million per annum. Comparison with existing lease costs isn’t applicable, as the majority of staff and activity being relocated is undertaken at Stafford St, which council owns and therefore doesn’t pay existing lease costs."

 

A simple solution?

With the impending opening of the Christchurch stadium, there appears to be much hand-wringing of the financial future of the local stadium.

Instead of worrying about inclusiveness, diversity and "a lot of thinking", why not find suitable site(s) to provide accommodation?

Several years ago on one of Rod Stewart's tours, the closest stay was Oamaru (we were living in Ashburton then).

I believe a hotel had been mooted to be built in the wharf area, but it didn't go ahead.

Provide the beds and people will come. Too simple, perhaps?

Ian Rive
Dunedin

 

Why on earth was that park put just there?

I was shocked to read the article in the ODT (16.1.25). The Mandeville Airfield has existed since the 1920s or 1930s, yet a playground was installed just last year in close proximity to it.

First and foremost, the playground should never have received resource consent.

Surely the Gore District Council was aware of the airfield's location when approving the playground's construction?

To make matters worse, the playground is surrounded by an electric fence tape.

Can it truly meet health and safety standards? I highly doubt it.

Common sense must prevail and the playground must be dismantled and rebuilt somewhere else in the town.

Brian Peat
Mosgiel

 

I cannot comprehend that our oldest airfield has had to close, albeit temporarily, because the local council built a children's playground on its boundary with no fence.

The safety of the children should not have been put on to the airfield users but back at the council who decided on the playground's location.

Where will common sense go next?

Liz Rowe
Owaka

 

Address Letters to the Editor to: Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517, 52-56 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin. Email: editor@odt.co.nz