WestWards Launch

Finally found time to put down a few words about recent events. It’s been all go for the last few days. We had a very successful launch of WestWards 2016 campaign last Friday night and many thanks to the great volunteers who supplied and prepared refreshments as well as cleaning up afterwards. A good number of people turned up to meet WestWards candidates, any more people and the room wouldn’t have been big enough. Each candidate gave a short blurb on what had brought them to the decision to stand for Council. Carl Harding remembered that in his time as a Waitakere City Councillor our area was the jewel in Auckland’s Crown and how things had changed. Finishing his address with the spontaneous comment “let’s put the Eden back in Glen Eden” to which there was good applause. We were very pleased to hear the public’s thoughts and get feedback on WestWards policies.
Then we were straight into getting signs up, so it was a very early start on Saturday morning. As I’m standing as a Councillor for the Waitakere Ward, there’s a big area to cover and Auckland Council has designated 84 official sites where campaign signs can be erected. So it’s a big job. Of the 12 to 14 signs, on Great North Rd, outside the Kelston Community Centre, all except WestWards sign have been knocked over two nights in a row. Don’t know if this is good luck, or we did a good job constructing our sign, maybe we’re just in favour, but I feel for those candidates who signs are knocked down, as there is a lot of work going around putting them all backup.