Surprise doors opened for anti water meter campaigner Jackie Elliott when she attended the Ōtaki Community Board meeting on August 7th.
Ms Elliott, concerned with the quality of representation for the people of Ōtaki by elected members of the Ōtaki community board spoke up and requested Mr Don Moselen’s resignation.
“I felt genuine concern that the Ōtaki community were not getting a fair deal with Mr Moselen’s continued presence and my thoughts were reiterated by subsequent speakers” said Mrs Elliott.
I thought nothing more of it until two days later, when I heard the news of his resignation on the radio while gardening for a Waikanae pensioner. “Well dear, are you going to stand? “
was the question asked, and the public have not stopped asking me that question ever since.
So yes, I have made the decision to stand for Ōtaki Community Board, with the support of my family, friends and fellow campaigners. I look forward to the learning curve ahead of me.
It is 360 days since I launched the ‘Ask us First’ petition for a referendum on water meters. And I feel like I have been campaigning ever since. The beginning of the petition coincided with the Government elections, so I spent alot of time bumping into and making friends with our local candidates. I must admit some jealousy when the election night arrived and I knew they would be able to relax a little. That rest hasn’t happened for me yet with continued campaigning against water meters and then two months ago bringing together all the amazingly talented Kāpiti Coasters from Paekākāariki to Ōtaki who made the petition such a success to form KCC Kāpiti Concerned Citizens, our new ratepayer lobby group.
Aside from the water meter issue, the future proofing of Kāpiti for the next generations is vital to me. I am embarrassed to say our generation have wallowed in the benefits of a 20 yr building boom, and yet will leave nothing for the kids but crippling Council debt. They want to bring up their children here too, but I fear few will be able to afford it. We could have left something concrete, we could have left the dam for them and so many of us wanted to and still want to.
After being a resident of Paraparaumu and Raumati all my life, my husband and I moved to Te Horo seven years ago, to discover Ōtaki. As a Kindy Mum I quickly became a part of a unique community with it’s own challenges. Many Ōtaki residents are particularly vulnerable, with a far lower average household income, a town with infrastructure suffering from years of being on the edges of it’s governing council. A fierce love for their most prized taonga, the Ōtaki River, and the most incredible early Maori history of any part of New Zealand.
History is my passion, I am secretary of the Kāpiti Historical Society and I have been lucky enough to have spent the last two years taught by the Ngati Raukawa and Ngati Toa to work as a guide on Kāpiti Island, I wanted to immerse myself in the Island environment while learning everything I could about our early peoples here, and I have had the best teachers possible, descendants of those original families.
Five years ago I published my maternal family’s story of 5 generations on the Kāpiti Coast and I have been trying ever since to knuckle down and write my fathers familys’ equally long local history, that book is on hold again, as electioneering starts, with any luck I can add my name to Kāpiti’s history, it would be an honour to do so.
You can meet the candidate at Kāpiti Concerned Citizens public meetings:
11.30am Wednesday 29 August – Presbyterian Church, Ngaio Rd, Waikanae
and
10.30am Saturday 1 September – Rotary Hall, Aotaki St, Ōtaki.
