Cr Wallace

Cr Ray Wallace has put his hand up for the mayoralty under the banner "Team Ray Wallace". So far there's no sign of a team and polling day is only 6 weeks away! Does anyone know anything about Ray's team? The campaign is developing rapidly into a phony war where teams are all about us, but none have yet been seen. Maybe Ray should link up with Rose Thomas as then they would each have a team.

As far as Ray's suitability for the top job goes, he does have an unerring ability to extract a clap from any audience. We just hope that his various audiences are never introduced to each other as they might get a rude shock.

It's easy to drum up community support by holding closed shop kumbayyah sessions where everyone is one big happy family and the council has an open cheque book.

More on Cr Finlayson

The latest Taita Times carries a full page advertisement for Cr Finlayson - not announcing his retirement, as you might have expected - but announcing that he's standing again for council and also for another entity that actually doesn't exist. If you are going to put your name forward for something it pays to do some basic background research, like finding out what its called!

Hutt 2020

Ever since Trevor Mallard stuck his Heineken bottle rudely into our local body affairs the Hutt 2020 team has been denying any close links with the Labour Party.

How then do you explain this: www.winnie.org.nz/updates/localbody? (It's surprising that Winnie hasn't worked out that her brother is standing!)

So why are 2020 so desperate to deny a link with Labour? Is it because of Labour's increasing unpopularity? Is it because they have belately smelt the public mood against political party meddling in local government?

Or is it a case of that very catchy virus, orchestrated amnesia, that's now doing the rounds in Wellington?

Cr Angus Finlayson

Is it true that Cr Finlayson told the whole council just after the last election that he was going to retire in 2007 and asked to be appointed to a $10,000 a year board position as a retiring present?

Cross Valley Link

What's happening with this project? My business is just being throttled by congestion along the Petone foreshore. Leslie, Seaview.

Other campaign sites?

I've been looking for web sites of teams in the Hutt elections but have drawn a blank. Can you help me? So far the only one is yours - www.ocof.co.nz/.

I have found two mayoral sites: www.rosethomas.co.nz/ (at one stage this came back with an error message saying "the content you are looking for does not exist") and www.rossjamieson.co.nz/. Neither of these tells me much, although Ross' site is verbose, but mostly about his flying exploits. It's a strange mixture of Boys' Own Journal and Biggles.