A vote of thanks

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 13, Issue 609, 24 October 1995, Page 4

A vote of thanks

• Waimarino - Low Voter Turnout Disappoints - What Happened? What to do with local body voting papers: • Use it to pick up a dead mouse that the cat's brought in and throw that and the mouse over the back fence. • Use it as bookmark, then give the book and the bookmark away. • Swat a fly with it and hurl it and the fly into the fire. • Wave it around and pretend it's a letter from an old boyfriend and get thrown in the fire with it. • Change all the names to names of the family pets, get the kids to draw them and send it off to the returning officer. • Use the back as a shopping list

and let people with names like Wattie, Tegel, Gregg, Pam and Chelsea have a show. What was the reason for the low turnout? Could the whole business just be incredibly dull? Could it be some unmentionable thing like the Waimarino perhaps feels totally divorced from the control tower in Taumarunui? Would it be better to enter into some council arrangement by Internet with the peoples of Pinatubu? Where were the transsexuals, the kaftan wearing Bob Moodies, the Sukhi Turners? Maybe in three years time the voting papers could have a tear-off raffle number to throw into a hat and some lucky voters could get a family trip for a week to Fiji. However, as Edmund Burke (1729-97) said "The conduct of a losing party never appears right." And while heads should be rolling about the base of the guillotine over the "Garden Centre Affair", I would like to sincerely thank those people who voted for me and am sorry that I am unable to represent them on council at this time.

Justine

Adams