HAWERA LIBRARY AMNESTY QUIETLY WIPES MAYOR'S $340 DVD TAB
South Taranaki's top brass walks free on three years of overdue Sopranos box sets while everyone else got a stern email.
South Taranaki District Council's much-trumpeted library fine amnesty has, by sheer cosmic coincidence, cleared the mayor's $340 of overdue DVD charges going back to 2021, including a Sopranos box set last seen in his ute.
The amnesty, announced quietly on the council Facebook between a roadworks update and a photo of a duck, was sold to ratepayers as a chance to "reconnect with reading". What it actually did was zero out 1,847 accounts, one of which belonged to the bloke who signs off the library's budget.
Hawera local Raewyn Tukapua, 58, who paid her $12 fine in March because she's "not a thief", was unimpressed. "I drove down there, queued behind a fella returning a VHS, and tapped my card. Three weeks later they tell me it's all free. Now I find out the mayor's been sitting on Season 4 since the second lockdown. Piss-take."
A tradie mate of mine who does jobs out that way reckons he saw the mayor's missus dropping a stack of discs in the returns chute at 7am Tuesday, "like she was getting rid of a body". Library staff confirmed a "large anonymous return" the same morning, including two scratched Bond films and a Pilates DVD.
A council spokesperson said the amnesty applied "equally to all ratepayers regardless of position" and that suggesting otherwise was "unhelpful". Asked whether the mayor had personally benefited, the spokesperson said the question was "not one we're across at this time", which is council for yes.
The Sopranos box set has been re-shelved. It is, per the catalogue, currently on loan again. To the mayor.
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Reader Letters
Garry (Halswell)
Wouldn't have happened in '94. We had standards back then, not this furniture nonsense.
ropeable_dave
mate '94 was thirty years ago what are you on about
MumOf3_Riccarton
Honestly fair enough. Council inorganic is Thursday and my berm is a war zone anyway.
Margaret_F
Gerald would have sorted it with one phone call to the council.
BarryBishopdale
Bloody typical. And while we are at it, the council has been useless since 1987. Cyclists probably love this.
Margaret_F
Reminds me of Gerald. He would have had opinions about the pallet, I can tell you that.
couchgremlin
Lol
long_winded_garry
I remember when the whole street used to argue about whose turn it was to mow the berm and now we cannot even agree on a mattress without someone invoking the Resource Management Act for forty minutes straight like it is a royal commission.