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Posted on 25-1-2002
Wake
Up Auckland
Last Tuesday, about 200 people attended a public meeting at
Freeman's Bay
Community Centre as part of the mounting opposition to the cutbacks
to
the role and function of the Auckland City Council as recommended
by Bill
Birch and as planned by John Banks and the Auckland Citizen
and
Ratepayers Now majority.
The meeting was described by many present as the largest broad
based
meeting of its kind for many years. (See PTV programme Mondays
10pm on
Triangle Television.) All agreed that urgent action must be
taken to stop
these unmandated slash and burn proposals. The meeting adopted
the name
of WAKE UP AUCKLAND for our coalition. (We acknowledge Marilyn
Sainty as
the proposer of this name and the funder of the excellent billboard
on
College Hill.)
Organising and networking meetings will be held each week for
the next
while on Tuesdays at 7.30 pm at the Freeman's Bay Community
Centre
(Hepburn St).
<bold>Agreed priorities for action are:
</bold>
1. Lobbying Councillors: details can be found on
www.akcity.govt.nz/council/governing_your_city/representatives_and_meetings/your_elected_representatives/index.asp
2. Organising for street march and rally against the changes.
A date or
dates will be set at the next meeting, but priority will be
given to the
following dates:
21 February - a decision will be made to sell off pensioner
and other
housing.
March and May - opportunities for public submissions as part
of the
annual planning process.
3. Organising a large petition.
Other actions that people can take include letters to the editor
(copy to
the mayor and councillors), ringing talkback, talking to non-voters,
ringing democracy Services at the Council 379 2020 and lodging
a
compliant about the undemocratic actions of the council, attend
committee
and council meetings.
If you are unsure about the implications of these policies,
they are a
rehash of the policies from the late eighties and the 1990's.
See the
article by Larry Elliott in the Guardian newspaper of 21 January
2002
<underline><color><param>0000,0000,ffff</param>www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,636623,00.html</color></underline>
called "A cure worse than the disease."
See you at the meetings and on the marches.
Marney Ainsworth, Mobile 021-284 7122, Ph: 64-9-376 6213, Fax:
64-9-376 0403, marney@xtra.co.nz
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