Have your say: Mayor Williams

By John Grant

In the last few weeks we have seen front page headlines in the Herald, The North Shore Times Advertiser and we’ve seen him on TV news and Close Up.

Why, because he been out spoken on issues around the Super City amalgamation. He has publicly criticised the people behind the amalgamation and has made it clear that he is not at all happy with the robustness of the process for such a significant change.

The recent personal attacks on the Mayor have been focused around the late night antics and the sending of text messages to various politicians, including the Prime Minister at various hours of the night. He has produced some interesting evidence which shows that perhaps he has been targeted in a campaign designed to discredit him. For example the Prime Minister referred to text messages during the early hours of the morning. He said they were aggressive and not worthy of a response.

The cell phone logs that Mayor Williams produced indicated the texts were made on September the 17 around 12.20am just after the House had been sitting under urgency on the Supercity second reading? Seems a very plausible action from someone who is obviously passionate about how the North Shore are finishes up following the amalgamation.

In regard to the George Wood spat, well this is another issue. However only one side of this has been heard and it is an issue that needs some more journalist follow up.

The recent attacks by the North Shore Times show a rocky relationship between the Mayor and that paper. Our dealings with the Mayor on the other hand have been quite reasonable. We have found him accessible and willing to answer any question we have asked of him. No ranting or raving and no trail of abuse, just a relationship one would expect from a public figure.

We are not suggesting he is perfect, however the amalgamation is a huge change and it is moving through at speed. The mayor has the right to be heard and to show some emotion and passion about his constituency without what appears orchestrated campaigns to discredit him.

We should be debating issues and leave the personal attacks out of this.