Newspaper Article 1997 – Confessions of a Young Turk

Robert Bell, a Hastings City councillor in the 1970s, was back in his old home town earlier this month after a 16-year absence. In this article, he recalls his days as a councillor (not always fondly) and reflects on the changes that have taken place. He now lives in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Confessions of a Young Turk

The greatest presentation of a city’s development and pride lies in its leadership.

Hastings has traversed a number of personalities in the office of mayor. I held office with two of them and served as a fellow councillor with the current mayor, Jeremy Dwyer.

All have honestly served Hastings well and to the best of their ability, but Mr Dwyer has perceivably done an outstanding job in the development of Hastings. The visual progress that is apparent in inner Hastings made it a pleasure to walk down Heretaunga St.

When Mr Dwyer and I were councillors at the same time we did not differ often and certainly not on anything of a major importance to the city. Under his leadership as mayor I believe Hastings has progressed far more rapidly than I had thought possible.

Now well away from that part of my life I look back with mixed feelings about my nine years as a councillor. Not all are pleasant.

In 1971 I was 32. The Hastings Jaycee had run a strong campaign for me and I had the support of the youth of the city. I won the seat by three votes on election night, and 11 on the final count.

I WELL REMEMBER the first committee meeting I attended in the old chambers in Hastings St. It was a cultural shock. All the other councillors were in their very late 50s, early to mid-60s or older. I felt I was in an old man’s club and I certainly was not made welcome.

I was the new boy on the block and considered “too young to be there”, as the wife of an out-going councillor told me. As I came away from that meeting I remember asking myself: “What in the hell am I doing here?”

I was ordered (not asked) not to ask questions (since I knew nothing of council affairs) and told by a few councillors that I was to sit and listen. This I did for two committee meetings.

Then it changed. I asked the question: “Why had a very selective informal meeting been called by Mayor Ron Giorgi (at his home) and why had not all the councillors been invited to that meeting?”

A fair question but a bad move by me – my life as a young councillor began to change.

At the first open council meeting Cr Ernest Velvin stated publicly: “Mr Mayor, we now have the first of the long-hairs on council”, referring to me by the length of my hair – it was certainly not long then and was neatly trimmed.

This comment was immediately followed by Cr Len Harlen, the city’s long serving fire chief: “If he worked for me I’d have his hair cut.” Thus was my welcome to the Hastings City Council.

Mr Dwyer later commented that because of my “youth” I paved the way and affectionately nick-named me the “first of the Young Turks”. Needless to say he, too, was a “Young Turk”. Thankfully the era of city council members where it was considered to be the “cream-on-the-top of-the-cake-following-retirement”, is long gone.

Local government is big business and the city needs the best and the most far thinking people that it can muster on its council.

As I reflect on that first term I do not remember too much being achieved outside a lot of medium-term planning. Advance planning that took place during that term did not show up until future terms – the extension to the library and the council chambers, Fantasyland (a problem all on its own) and the sewer system to name some.

One major item was the review of the town plan and this became a prima donna affair for some of the city’s young lawyers as they vied to establish their names as the number one authority in town planning.

Hastings was in a ridiculous situation. It was 1973 and the city operated under the archaic 1938 Town Plan with volumes of paper amendments.

So stupid was some of the by-laws that one actually permitted a person to shoot an arrow from a bow in any street except Heretaunga – why was this ever in a by-law in the first place I have no idea.

FURTHER, and more bizarre, was: If farmer Bloggs decided to ride his horse into town the by-law said it had to be hitched to a hitching rail (no problem there) – but there were no hitching rails.

Remember, this was 1973. In the areas that were still zoned for horses we now had parking meters. Under the by-laws a horse was classified as a mode of transport and therefore entitled to a hitching rail. However, a horse was not allowed to occupy an area with a parking meter – this was for cars, despite the fact that the area in question was still zoned for horses.

To add insult to injury and further the stupidity, the tethering of a horse to a hitching rail clause had been amended over and over as was evidenced by the attached pieces of paper with the various amendments written on them. It had never been repealed. Believe me, this was in the by-laws and shows just how far they were out of touch.

I do remember one councillor continually going to sleep at meetings and when I challenged this I was asked to apologise by Mayor Giorgi. This councillor shall remain unnamed.

For my second term I wanted Cr John Mackersey to stand for mayor. I still believe he would have been the right man for that period of time.

He phoned me from his home and said he had Cr Jim O’Connor with him and asked for my support of him as mayor. I was not an O’Connor fan for mayor and tried hard to talk Cr Mackersey into standing, but no luck.

After a very shaky start Mr O’Connor became a better than average mayor and a strong voice for the city. He did an excellent job.

This time around we had new blood and the average age of councillors had dropped. Cr Royce Marshall appeared as another “Young Turk”.

The sewer was high on the agenda as well as the Fernhill rubbish dump.

It was during this term that I took a bashing over Fantasyland. I had written a committee report and recommendations and somebody in the council administration staff leaked it to reporters. I had prepared this report for a meeting of the parks and reserves committee.

The chairman, Cr Jack Linnell, had no idea of the existence of this report as it had not been presented to the committee. He was caught off guard and read it in the newspaper for the first time. Understandably, he reacted and attacked me in open council.

At that time the council was not held in great regard by the public and since my report was focused on the management of Fantasyland and as the memory of the fiasco of the Jaycee project of Noddytown was still fresh in the public mind, they took my side.

A bad situation for all concerned. Letters to the editor came in fast and furious along with telephone calls. I went to Cr Linnell and met with him in his office. Later in July, 1971, much of what I took a beating over was implemented.

It was at that same time the revitalisation of the Municipal Theatre was started and the initial committee was Mr O’Connor, myself, Crs Alan Grant, Bet Groves, John Holder and Linnell. It was left to me and Mr Cedric Wright (theatre custodian) to map out the future of the use of the theatre and prepare a report.

It is nice to see what has now been achieved and Mr Ron Shakespeare is to be complimented.

That term saw the opening of the new council chambers.

MY THIRD TERM saw more young blood on council and the new ideas came rolling in. Crs Jeremy Dwyer and Michael Dunk were the “Young Turks” this time around.

The work on the sewer continued and this was not without humour.

A photograph in the Herald-Tribune in mid-1981 showing Mayor O’Connor, Crs Bell, Dunk, Dwyer, Linnell, Mackersey, Peter Single and engineers Bert Selles and Keith Thompson through the open pipe end of the diffuser generated a phone call from an unidentified person who commented that this is where all the councillors and the staff should be – at the diffuser end of the sewer outfall.

The demise of the ring-road system is without doubt the best thing that happened for the inner city of Hastings and to me the most noticeable. When I first came on the council in 1971 this was a done deal. It was already voted upon, approved and going in that same year.

Since the object was to get the surplus traffic out of Heretaunga St, I remember voicing an opinion that traffic should be encouraged to use St Aubyn St and a by-pass rather than the ring road system be established two blocks to the south of Heretaunga St.

Needless to say I was told it was too late and my idea would not be considered. As it turned out two roads south would have interfered with the new council building.

I never really liked the ring-road idea and believed it would seriously hurt inner city shopping.

I could see the loss of business to the inner city because it took people out of the central shopping area. Man is a lazy animal and if he has to walk more than 10 metres to buy something he would rather drive an extra 15 kilometres to avoid that walk. I felt that the ring-road encouraged this mentality. But it was there to stay.

Almost immediately it affected business, specially the block between Hastings and Warren streets.

Shops were hurt. If downtown Hastings was to survive then a magnet had to be created to deliberately bring people into the centre of the city to shop. I felt a mall in the centre of town should be developed and if landscaped attractively would act as that magnet.

On a trip to Miami, Florida, in 1973, I saw that mall concept working and what had been achieved by the garden atmosphere that accompanied it. On my return to the council I tried in vain to do something of this nature. Alas, nobody appeared interested.

THE MALL in the centre city looks beautiful to me. It has certainly achieved a comfortable area to come relax and shop in the inner city. It is a pity that more people do not avail themselves of it.

The water feature is a vast improvement on what was there previously. Controversy over the original design was instrumental in the early retirement of parks superintendent Mr J. MacKenzie because of a disagreement between him and engineer Bert Selles.

Hastings’ lifeblood is water as it depends on agriculture – it is the fruitbowl of New Zealand. Many times I commented on that and I never apologised for wet weather to visitors.

I advocated for a far more elaborate water feature to symbolise this facet of Hastings life and its dependence on agriculture.

It is indeed pleasant to return to a city that is visually pleasing. The changes to Hastings and Havelock North are wonderful and shows definite foresight.

The business section I thought would show the scar signs from the loss of the old names like Blackmores, Poppelwells, Bon Marche, but this was not apparent to me although the buying pedestrian traffic seemed minimal.

Hastings is now starting to resemble a small US city through the arrival of the large departmental stores like of K-mart, and competition between the leading supermarkets.

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In 1971, Robert Bell was aged 32 and just elected to the Hastings City Council. At his first meeting he was welcomed with a remark by Cr Ernest Velvin that “we now have the first of the long-hairs on council”. To which Cr Len Harlen added: “If he worked for me I’d have his hair cut.”

Robert Bell, 1997