The ECAN saga has been wild since I left Christchurch in 2012. So many reports of scientists quitting when they were ignored by ECAN because they had the 'wrong ideas' about how to improve the Canterbury region...
I had no idea ECAN had become an unelected bureau of the civil service, so this explains a lot about why I've been seeing so many scientists quit in disgust since 2010...
I can't fault the reasoning, or the principle involved, though will observe that, as a townie, ECAN elections have always seemed to be little better than a beauty contest between candidates I know nothing substantive about (other than what they submit themselves in their brief candidate profiles), on matters that seem pretty removed from anything that I as a voter could competently assess.
When I turn on the tap, I want clean water to emerge, without ridiculous usage limits, and don't want to be charged more than I had been for that privilege in order to subsidize new infrastructure to serve a growing population. And I don't like the adverse impacts of stock defecating in our rivers, or having rivers and aquifers sucked dry by irrigation, and simultaneously don't want to pay extra for food due to reduced farming intensity.
Pretty much like everyone else, I don't want to pay the price for population or economic growth especially when increased costs passed on to me seem to mostly benefit other people.
These things would be at about the limit of my interest or awareness, and I can never tell how best to vote to further even those goals.
I suppose that this can be said for all elections, and that the onus is on voters to remedy their own ignorance, and that would be true - but the idea of just letting the experts get on with it, eliminating at least some of the 'going through the motions' administrative overhead sure is attractive.
The ECAN saga has been wild since I left Christchurch in 2012. So many reports of scientists quitting when they were ignored by ECAN because they had the 'wrong ideas' about how to improve the Canterbury region...
I had no idea ECAN had become an unelected bureau of the civil service, so this explains a lot about why I've been seeing so many scientists quit in disgust since 2010...
Damn, I am permitted no complacency when you're writing Zoran. And that is something I give thanks for.
I can't fault the reasoning, or the principle involved, though will observe that, as a townie, ECAN elections have always seemed to be little better than a beauty contest between candidates I know nothing substantive about (other than what they submit themselves in their brief candidate profiles), on matters that seem pretty removed from anything that I as a voter could competently assess.
When I turn on the tap, I want clean water to emerge, without ridiculous usage limits, and don't want to be charged more than I had been for that privilege in order to subsidize new infrastructure to serve a growing population. And I don't like the adverse impacts of stock defecating in our rivers, or having rivers and aquifers sucked dry by irrigation, and simultaneously don't want to pay extra for food due to reduced farming intensity.
Pretty much like everyone else, I don't want to pay the price for population or economic growth especially when increased costs passed on to me seem to mostly benefit other people.
These things would be at about the limit of my interest or awareness, and I can never tell how best to vote to further even those goals.
I suppose that this can be said for all elections, and that the onus is on voters to remedy their own ignorance, and that would be true - but the idea of just letting the experts get on with it, eliminating at least some of the 'going through the motions' administrative overhead sure is attractive.
Off with their heads as Queenie said….