Where to meet your candidate

1. With the upcoming local-body elections nearly upon us, it seems like an apt time to remind ourselves of the responsibilities of councillors towards us, the people that they allegedly represent. I for one would prefer a knowledge-based approach to any activities undertaken by the council, rather than an ego-driven or tradition-based approach. The things that currently concern me – and the science backs me up on this – is the rise of pollution in the town and immediate environs. ‘Pollution’ encapsulates many areas, not just air pollution (of which Masterton exceeded the ‘safe’ levels several times this last winter), but also noise pollution (did you know that if you live on a busy main road, you are ten times less likely to conceive?) and light pollution (this has been shown to alter most small to medium-sized animals and birds life-cycles). I am not coming from the angle of a ‘greeny’ – the derisive term employed by people in NZ who appear to want things their own way regardless of environmental consequences (or how it affects other people’s lifespans and life-styles) – but from one whose life has been spent studying statistical correlations. My main concern at present is that of depression… it has been shown, over and over in studies by both amateur and professional researchers, individual and organisationally based, that the no of depressed people in any given population rises and lowers according to the amount of pollution. We talk about ‘lowering suicide rates’ and ‘beating depression’ but yet do little to actually change the things that have been strongly linked to encouraging the existence of high rates of depression and of high suicide rates. The thing is, there are a number of things that can and should be done to reduce these problems – road noise can be lowered by having better roads (it is slightly sad that the best piece of roading in Masterton is the drag-strip!), many of which can be performed by the council. However, though it is easy to expect the council to solve all of our problems it should be noted that many of them can also be made better by individuals – YOU, a denizen of Masterton (i.e. does your dog bark frequently – or when you are out at work? In case you aren’t aware – that is noise pollution too!). Is there glass on your pavement… or rubbish … or dog excrement? It seems like the duty of the council to maintain the quality of our streets (and legally probably is – but I am no lawyer), but they are obviously unable to match the requirements currently. Perhaps we need to give them more ideas – be more participatory ourselves, suggesting locations where a rubbish bin
   or dog-excrement bin might help. All of these things might help reduce pollution. The council recently took steps to address some of the light-pollution issues by installing new lights that don’t cause so much light pollution – so there has been a reduction in that, but we now have three (or maybe it’s four companies) claiming to offer a better-for-the-environment rubbish collection service. One has to ask how increasing the number of trucks on our residential streets on a daily basis is better for our environment! I don’t honestly know whether the overall balance is better or worse because of them – but what I do know, is that we should all be asking questions about these things. Because in the end, it is our health and the health of our children which we are neglecting if we don’t. The council certainly needs to up its game, and perhaps spend some more time (and money) improving the residential areas of Masterton, not just the CBD and pretty areas that they want to encourage tourists to visit, especially regards aspects regarding pollution – but we all also have a part to play… again, especially regards pollution. Noise, air and light pollution is caused by people.. whether those people are part of an organisation or are acting individually, it is still caused by people. We know it exacerbates problems with depression… and hence literally helps to cause a societal breakdown. This is OUR town, so let’s work together to make OUR future in it cleaner, for all OUR sakes, and not just leave this in the hands of the council.

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