Dear Editor, as one of the co-founders of Kāpiti Dog Owners’ Group (K-DOG) I am extremely annoyed at the publicity stunt by the Rowan campaign in attempting to portray Ms Rowan as some kind of Jean D’Arc of Kāpiti Dogdom.
My wife and I happened to be at Raumati Beach on 19 September, to walk our dog Sasha, which we have done most days for the past eleven years. There were dozens of dogs and their owners walking the once briefly restricted area from Wharemauku stream to Rua Road. The dogs were wearing coats which read: “Vote for Jenny Rowan to be Mayor again”. The reference to Ms Rowan was in large print. Underneath in virtually indiscernible small print was a reference to the rest of the council.
My wife and I approached about half a dozen of the dog walkers. None had been regulars on this part of the beach, none had been active with K-DOG, some were not even from the Kāpiti District, so how they were going to vote for Ms Rowan is problematic, and most expressed surprise when we pointed out that Ms Rowan was NOT instrumental in getting the beach back as a dog exercise area; it was the result of a lot of hard work from about 60 K-DOG members. One woman from outside the District stated that she would be taking the matter up with the organisers.
A substantial article publicising the planned walk had been carried on the K C News website. The article referred to the K-DOG activity last year. The article states:
‘Mayor Jenny Rowan supported the dog owners’ right to be able to run on the beach led by animal activist Judy Morley-Hall. To acknowledge this support, Mrs Morley-Hall and fellow dog owners are involving their dogs in Ms Rowan’s election campaign’.
Nothing about this paragraph is accurate. At the time, Ms Rowan showed no particular support for the K-DOG campaign. I have had this confirmed from within Council. It was her council that put restrictions on the area in the first place, after suddenly voting for totally new amendments to the bylaw which changed what had been publicly consulted upon into its reverse, on the advice of one council bureaucrat and one community board member. K-DOG exposed irregularities in the Council vote on the amendment, and after a lot of work over the course of months, was able to persuade the council to reverse its position from unanimously voting for the restrictions, to unanimously revoking them. I contend that the deciding factor was that there were obviously a lot of votes to be gained or lost.
It is also wrong to have stated that the campaign had been ‘led’ by Mrs Judy Morley-Hall. While Mrs Morley-Hall gave invaluable support, she was one of several co-founders, including Ina, Amanda, my wife and myself, and therefore the implication that K-DOG under Mrs Morley-Hall’s leadership is supporting Ms Rowan for re-election is utter nonsense.
From what I have been able to ascertain, Ms Rowan’s campaigners approached several K-DOG stalwarts to solicit K-DOG support, and they were invited to a meeting on this. One of the two members at the meeting pointed out that K-DOG could not support such a campaign, and specifically stated that a slogan such as, “Vote for Jenny Rowan to be Mayor again” with reference to getting the beach back for dogs, was unequivocally not correct and was unacceptable. Hence, the indiscernible print underneath in regard to the council in general. This is a dishonest representation. An accurate slogan would read:
‘Vote for Jenny Rowan to be our Mayor again. She and the council took the beach away from the dogs after ignoring the public consultation process; put through a hitherto unknown amendment that totally reversed what had been publicly consulted upon, was embarrassed by the cock-up, and relented to pressure from K-DOG after public opposition was organised’.
Such a slogan might not be quite as cogent as the one settled for by the Rowan campaign, but would at least have reflected the facts. It could also have been shouted out en mass as a catchy vocal slogan.
The only proactive encouragement of any note from any councillor I know of was from David Scott, both before and since, who had not however sought to blow his own horn on the matter for political ends.
As one of the K-DOG co-founders who worked very hard on this campaign, running up and down the beach with a petition, as best as my arthritic joints would allow, speaking at council and other meetings, and having even proposed the name of the group; I am a tad peeved that this issue had been cynically hijacked by the Rowan campaign as part of a political agenda, attempting to claim credit for matters for which she can claim none. After enquiries, I am not alone among K-DOG co-founders in my dismay.
K R Bolton
Paraparaumu