Coast council to impose new bylaw — rock thieves a target
From local democracy reporter Brendon McMahon:
West Coast Regional Council staff will have renewed clout in dealing with anyone who removes rock from floodwalls.
This follows an incident late last year where council compliance staff caught a person red-handed removing a serpentine boulder from a protection wall at the mouth of Serpentine Creek, near the Coast to Coast start line.
Serpentine along with pounamu is a toanga of Ngai Tahu and is legally owned by the iwi.
The man, equipped with a trailer fitted with a winch, ignored an order by the council and removed rock anyway after compliance staff left.
A report to the Risk and Assurance Committee this week noted the council previously had a bylaw to protect its floodwalls, implemented in 2015, but it had lapsed last April. A renewed bylaw was timely given the proposed new floodwalls.
Committee chairman Frank Dooley said compliance staff needed adequate support to exercise their authority.
"We need to make sure that whatever we have in place gives them the ammunition for them to do their job thoroughly.
"We need to support them, when we find someone taking a rock out of our stopbank," Dooley said.
Acting operations manager Colin Munn said a renewed bylaw would offer staff protection and send "a clear message".
"In my experience, I have not had a lot of occasions if you need to pull a bylaw out and prosecute, but they are useful."
Dooley referred to "a threatening e-mail" he had since received from the alleged Serpentine offender, who had asked for his "physical dimensions".
Acting consents and compliance manager Rachel Clark said the alleged rock thief had since been identified.
"The rock that was taken from the Serpentine rock protection has been found, the alleged offender has been identified and questioned over the taking of the rock. The alleged offender is currently in custody for other alleged crimes."
Clark said apparently the piece of rock was mistakenly identified by the alleged offender as Pounamu.
It was too heavy for one person to carry, hence the trailer with winch to pick up the rock.
But on recovery by council it had been properly identified as a piece of Serpentine.
"It wasn't good quality stuff."
Its understood the alleged offender was visiting from Dunedin.
* Public interest journalism funded through NZ On Air
⚠️ DOGS DIE IN HOT CARS. If you love them, don't leave them. ⚠️
It's a message we share time and time again, and this year, we're calling on you to help us spread that message further.
Did you know that calls to SPCA about dogs left inside hot cars made up a whopping 11% of all welfare calls last summer? This is a completely preventable issue, and one which is causing hundreds of dogs (often loved pets) to suffer.
Here are some quick facts to share with the dog owners in your life:
👉 The temperature inside a car can heat to over 50°C in less than 15 minutes.
👉 Parking in the shade and cracking windows does little to help on a warm day. Dogs rely on panting to keep cool, which they can't do in a hot car.
👉 This puts dogs at a high risk of heatstroke - a serious condition for dogs, with a mortality rate between 39%-50%.
👉 It is an offence under the Animal Welfare Act to leave a dog in a hot vehicle if they are showing signs of heat stress. You can be fined, and prosecuted.
SPCA has created downloadable resources to help you spread the message even further. Posters, a flyer, and a social media tile can be downloaded from our website here: www.spca.nz...
We encourage you to use these - and ask your local businesses to display the posters if they can. Flyers can be kept in your car and handed out as needed.
This is a community problem, and one we cannot solve alone. Help us to prevent more tragedies this summer by sharing this post.
On behalf of the animals - thank you ❤️
Poll: Would you rather: Christmas in summer forever or winter forever?
Just a bit of a fun poll to get you thinking.
If you had to live out your Christmas days, would you prefer it was a summer Christmas or a winter Christmas?
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62.1% Summer
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36.4% Winter
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1.5% Other - I'll share below
Worst Xmas ever?
There's a a lot of planning that goes into Christmas day and sometimes things just don't go to plan. But it can be a good thing - a family mishap or hilarious memory that you can laugh about in Christmases to come.
Whether you burnt the dinner or were stranded at an airport...
Share your Christmas mishaps below!
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