Sorry you missed the free beer .

If you live in Titirangi and  Art Galleries are not your thing then pull out a few weeds and  you would have enjoyed two really choice bands and free beer (the fancy kind) and organic cola, with woodfired pizza and top name bands -courtesy of the Waitakere Ratepayers – FREE.  Streuth! A super cool hipster movie was made about the whole  event  – you can view it here.    

I believe there’s been  two in Titirangi and one in Piha too.  Hopefully the next one is in the Foothills or in Glen Eden, but it seems unlikely.

The truth is not only are Titirangi  getting almost all the Arts Precinct funding (around 18 million so far and about 6 million in the next three years) they take the lion’s share of any other funding also.   (New reading  library deck, music festival, ecowest festival, books festival , memorial hall revamp, 1/2 million dollar  staircase  and paid co-ordinators for the art gallery, and the precinct ).

While Glen Eden is in tatters, and faces violent crime and failing businesses.  And the foothills have had little to no investment at all. The   investment the heritage area did receive for weeds  can’t be accounted for.

• At 4pm we’ll shuttle everyone back down to Titirangi Beach to grab some Stumpy’s Woodfired Pizza and refreshing Hallertau Beer (or other drink of your choice) and kick back with music from Storehouse Blues and King Skinny. Gig and food are FREE to everyone who has got their hands dirty at the working bee.

The free beer event credits Auckland Council and Gecko NZ Trusts (another council related trust).  The Council Team are currently searching for the unaccounted for  sustainable neighbourhoods weed money – that was supposed to have been   used for our Heritage Area.   Gecko Trust is the Sustainable Weeds contractor who was supposed to supply our Sustainable Weeds projects (or that’s what we were lead to believe.  It is actually Weedfree Trust (Mels Barton and Local Board Member,  Neil Henderson) who hold this $200k contract for community weed liaison.)

So  Council has spent the weed  money but can’t says where its gone.  The Environmental Services team are reviewing themselves.  It looks to me that this Weedfree dating party is  where our weed money went, and may explain the “weed explosion” in other parts of the local board area.

This money, energy  and ideas  should be going to long term community development that increases our wealth and wellbeing over the longterm. –  perhaps economic development in Glen Eden.  The quality signage and design could be permanent community assets in Glen Eden or Swanson or the Foothills .     And we should have strategies for lifting the economy and well-being in the whole local board area   not just Titirangi and Piha again, and again, and again.

I’m sick of our local area shops struggling with little help or investment.   The Glen Eden Village Precinct had stunning plans done for it’s streetscaping and shops – which gave a really visionary way forward – the Architect Plans are here.

Glen Eden Mainstreet and Shops.

What can you do.  Fill out your Draft Annual Plan and tell Council how you’d like them to spend your money.

**  The requests for  full financial details of the groups associated with the  Weed Dating activities have been “denied” by Auckland Council . We have been referred to the Ombudsman.