Saturday 28 August 2010It is 20 days until the ballot papers start arriving in the letter boxes and 42 days until ‘D’ day decision day on 09th October.
The day started with a hiss and roar at St Lukes Mall on the border of Mt Albert and Morningside. Moana Knight and the kind Mall Management folk allocated us space a table and a couple of chairs. We were outside GB Games and Pumpkin Patch. If you know the area you’ll also know it’s outside the corridor to the ‘wharepaku’. It reminded me of a time when I was filming at the Maori Sports Awards and certain high profile guests were avoiding being interviewed by our pretty Presenter. So she positioned herself outside the loos, knowing full well that all the targeted talent would have to visit the small-room sooner or later. Sure enough within half an hour of her setting up camera and lights, Gilly had ‘knocked-off’ all her interviews. O
f course Gilly’s ploy has nothing to do with our C&R Owairaka team’s campaigning. Not all the 
mall’s patrons visited this particular loo. It’s just funny how sights and smells trigger totally unrelated memories. The Mall itself has grand plans to extend. According to a NZ Herald Report: ‘Indoor floor space could be expanded to 9.2ha, eclipsing the 7ha Sylvia Park complex in Mt Wellington and Westfield Albany, which is also around 7ha.Westfield owns much of the housing around St Lukes mall where it wants to build out to the north and east. The mall is now 4.5ha with a Foodtown, Kmart, 127 specialty shops, five banks, a 644-seat food court with nine food outlets, a 1640-seat multiplex cinema and 2018 carparks. Westfield's expansion plans could see buildings flow north 
towards Exeter Rd and east towards Aroha Ave on sites the shopping giant has gradually bought.’ Obviously the development will be done in stages and residents will need a strong Local Council to over see the project to make sure the communities interests are maintained. C&R and myself are champions of business enterprise and this development will contribute to that objective. But it has to be balanced with community interests and also the impact on surrounding shopping centres like Sandringham, Kingsland and Mt Albert.Cameron and I left team mate Sarah Turner and Paul Goldsmith at the Mall, as we were keen to get started on door knocking in Pt Chevalier. Cameron lives on Huia Rd the same street as
Countdown. We thought that would be as good a place as any to start. Well blow me down when I pulled up outside his whare/house there Cameron was, on a trekkie contraption - a segway! At his youthful age of 29 of course he’s going to look good on this thing and he does. You can do 
quite a speed between the houses and some people do a double take when they see him. So as a campaign gimmick it’s a pretty cool one and for practical purposes it certainly is that too. Cameron plans to get it all ‘pimped’ out with C&R signage. I think it’ll look very cool, urbane and ‘metro-now’. Cameron’s exactly what the City needs, he’s entrepreneurial – a business owner, young, innovative, smart and clever.We got a good response in Huia Rd and Cameron’s neighbours appreciated knowing that ‘one of theirs’ was standing for Local Board. There was also overwhelming support for John Banks and C&R. Both are seen as pragmatic but progressive, visionary realists. My C&R Owairaka team are looking forward to and intend to meet as many community people as we can and to hearing their issues and to attending to them when we’re voted in on 09 October.
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