Council Rules

I had my first first-hand one-on-one encounter with my local council last week.  That being the Auckland City Council.

Be warned.  The greater part of this diatribe is a rant.

Requiring some official council documentation I made my first ever, intrepid journey to their Graham Street offices in the city.

Apparently that which I would be requesting was to be straight forward and hassle-free.  It would cost me a small amount of dollars – dependent on how fast I wanted to have the information – but c est la vi,  that was not at all unexpected.

I was advised to drive behind their building where there would be free car parking for anyone wanting a short visit.  That part was a surprise.  Free parking at council? This same council that has placed huge increases on any parking anywhere in the city?  To find I could go into their offices and park for nothing was a pleasant surprise.

As per the instructions given I drove around the side of their building and parked.  As I did I noted there was a very obvious council designated motor cycle parking area, clearly provided for the many council staff members who chose to commute via the two-wheeled motorised transport rather than drive their cars into the city each day.

How noble of council to provide for these environmental thinking staff members.

It is quite a long designated motor cycle space, maybe ten metres, clearly marked with yellow lines.  

Pictured below you can see the area and motorcycles described.

This photo above is was not taken on the day but taken from a Google Map shot.  The first thing I noticed last Monday was the amount of motor bikes and cycles parked in the designated area.  Commendable, I thought, to those good thinking staff members who chose that form of commuter transport. 

The next thing I could not help notice were the two large tow trucks parked adjacent to the area with three tow-truck-driver-esk fellows pushing motor cycles up ramps at the back of their trucks, loading cycles side by side onto tow truck decks.

As I drove slowly past, I paused, curious as to what was happening.  Surely there could not be so many broken down motor cycles requiring towing to away to a garage for repairs?  I looked again.  Both trucks had cycles on the decks and two of the men were quickly pushing another up.  Then I realised they were actually towing away cycles that had been just outside the yellow painted area, those parked at each end of the designated motor cycle parking areas due to the parking area being tightly filled by the 15 or so other cyclists who had clearly got into the office really early that morning and filled up the spaces available.

Now this may seem to make sense to some, indeed, I can hear the reactions of the reactionaries - "Well, they were parked illegally, they shouldn't be parked there.  If we parked our cars there we would be towed, why shouldn't they.  Just because they're motor cyclists doesn't mean they shouldn't be towed too."  

Fair enough.

But, for purposes of this article, I have screen dumped some Google Maps snap shots of the very motor cycle park (thank you again Google Maps).   You will see that at each end of the designated parking area are two to three metres of area that do not intrude into any other space designated for anything else;  it is not space that is designated for anything, nor is it blocking any entrance way, nor blocking any pedestrian way.  It’s just blank space.  Which makes one wonder why council would not just paint a few more yellow lines along the area to increase the 'formal' area for their own motor cycle driving staff to use.

On this particular Monday when I was there motor cyclists had parked at each end of that designed area.

If you see the picture below you will see only two parked on the left outside the yellow marked area.  On Monday that space was filled with little scooters.

This photo above shows 2 more at the other end, On Monday there were 3 more parked there.

Not one of the excess motor cycles or bikes were intruding into any space, in any way, that was detrimental to the landscape, the drive/road way, the pedestrian way, the car parking way. They were spaces conscientiously being utilised by conscientious council staff members who no doubt were inside the big building, conscientiously beavering away at their conscientious tedious council work.

And while they were being so conscientious these 3 tow truck drivers, contracted by the Auckland City Council, the employers of the conscientious council staff, were rushing as fast as they could to uplift every two-wheeled vehicle that was not parked in the yellow, designated area before any of the owners of said bikes could rush out and claim back their bike or scooter.

These two truck drivers were working at a furious 100% effort to get as many motor bikes, cycles and scooters onto the backs of their trucks before someone inside that building would send out an SOS to their workmates about their commuter vehicles being towed by their employer's contractors.

How nasty is that for an environment to work in. Subjective statement.  When your employer not only does not make available enough spaces for those conscientious scooter riding employees – but then call in the nasties to make their council working lives more miserable by having their precious work commuter vehicles towed.

And I have friends who work for council, and like their jobs. Clearly they are the ones who do not park their scooters in this area.

….. believe it or not  …. Non of this relates to my own experience with Council.

So back to me and my personal experience.

Getting a Property CD.

I needed a ‘Property CD’.  This is a CD council can provide with all information held by them on the address in which I live. 

According to the lady behind the Property CD desk, I could have a CD produced within 5 working days for $53.95, or have it produced instantly whilst I wait for $103.95, or have it produced within 4 hours for $83.95.

OK, methinks, that’s all fair enough.   Do I want to wait for 5 working days?  Nah, cause experience of other government-type offices reminds me that would probably end up being 6-7 working days.  Do I need it instantly?  Nah, I can wait for the 4 hour CD.  So I pays me monies of $83.95 for the 4 hour CD.  On paying the funds I asked, how do I know when it is done and ready for collection.  “Someone will telephone you,” I was told.  Fair enough.

By that time it was 12.20 pm.  Four hours after that would be 4.20 pm.  Fair enough.  It’s only a ten minute drive from my house to the council building, so that gives me forty minutes to get there and pick the $83.95 CD up before the council’s 5pm closing time. 

I leave and head home and wait for the 4.20 pm telephone call.

It doesn’t come. 

At 4.45 I realise time is running out for me to get in there and pick up the CD.

I pick up my mobile phone and call the council.  I get put on the hold programme.  At 4.50 I am still on hold.  And clearly will never make it to the Graeme Street, motor-cycle-tow-truck-administration building before their 5 pm closure.  I hang up.

Meanwhile, no phone call on the home phone ever comes.

Oh well, that’s yet another learning experience about dealing with ‘Council’.

Next day, I’ve prearranged commitments until 12 noon.  But at no time from 8 a.m. (when council buildings open to the public) until 1 pm do I receive a phone call to let me know my 4 hour CD is available for collection.

Post 1pm that next day I drive myself into that same building and head to the same counter.  (Note: there were no scooters or motor cycles parked outside those yellow lines.  Just two great big, empty spaces with nothingness in them.)

I ask for my Property CD, the receptionist heads off to a back office and comes out with the CD.  It’s been there, awaiting my collection, since yesterday.  Seems no one felt the sense of commitment, agreement or righteousness to give me the expected telephone call.

Do I get a refund or something in return for the non-compliance of the contract I paid $83.95 for, I asked.  No, I was told.   It was up to me to be back in 4 hours to collect it, even though the very same receptionist was the one who had told me the day before that I would be telephoned to let me know it was available for collection.

Well.  Council. 

And they wonder why they get bad press.

And this just adds to it.

I leave the office with my envelope with the CD in it and head home.  On the way out I am yet again bemused by council road signage I had seen the day before; painted on the tarmac outside their building.  

There it was – the notice on the road beside the big council building – ‘BEWARE OF PEDESTRIAN’.  It sent shivers down my spine.  Clearly there was a pedestrian out there that we were being warn about, a pedestrian who was to be feared. No doubt an Arnie Schwarzenegger, or Charles Bronson, or Bruce Willis type character - who had been waiting since eternity for a Property CD to be completed and ten decades later still waiting in the wings of the council car park building, hiding, prowling, waiting to unleash all their pent up council torment and anger - onto the walking, general public.

Or perhaps he'd had his 50cc scooter towed one day!  

On both visits to this council building I saw this frightening warning and both times planted the foot hard on the accelerator and flew out of that car park area like there was no tomorrow.

With a heavy sense of anxiety and relief I drove away from those council building with the lifelong hope that I never need to return for fear of tow truck drivers, uncalled calls and fearsome pedestrians.

And that, is my Monday rant.

The Tony Jackson Ironman Scholarship

Got a surprising emotional lift at opening Facebook yesterday.  There it was, the Kellogg’s Nutrigrain Ironman New Zealand notification of opening the applications for the 2017 Tony Jackson Ironman Scholarship.

I knew it was about to be up on their website and Facebook page at some time but was still taken aback and excited to see it there, yet again, for some individual to have the pleasure of giving more purpose in their endeavour to achieve making the start line of Ironman in Taupo next year.

Ironman New Zealand initiated the scholarship scheme in 2014 to acknowledge the commitment and services Tony gave to their sport, their organisation and the many, many athletes and administrators involved in all of their events.

It was a true privilege to know they thought so highly of him.  And a superb tribute to the special man he was.  I have no doubts he will be gloating with much self-satisfaction up there in Heaven, knowing he has been acknowledge so.

In the past two years two individuals have been the recipients of the scholarship.  Two amazing, incredibly strong and self empowering individuals.  Both who have achieved, without question, and by achieving have motivated others that “nothing is impossible to the willing mind”. 

I have gained immense value personally from knowing and meeting these individuals and can honestly say they have affected my own life by their integrity and staunchness. 

An added bonus is the circle of family and friends they have surrounding them, some of who I now consider unique and special individuals that have affected my life. 

The scholarship has had far greater rewards for more people than Ironman New Zealand could ever comprehend.

Seeing the Facebook notification sent the usual sentimental shivers through me as well.  Mourning a great loss does not go away or fade no matter the passage of time, but time does give one opportunities to learn to introduce strategies to work through the void and still keep smiling.  So I smiled big time when I saw this on Facebook. 

On the website there is a 2 minute video, snippets taken from the Sky Television coverage, which sums up what the scholarship is about.  It is worth taking the 2 plus minutes to view.

http://ap.ironman.com/triathlon/events/asiapac/ironman/new-zealand/athletes/tony-jackson-scholarship.aspx#axzz45ZusJN00

Following the notification I received a lovely email from someone I barely know but someone who saw the update and felt compelled to share a lovely, personal story he had of Tony some many years ago, a story relating to how Tony had helped him when in a training pickle.  It was a delight to read the email and I was ever so grateful to have received it and know that yet again there was another incident where he gave someone a lift, a helping hand. 

That person had not know about Tony’s passing until well after it occurred and asked some pertinent questions as to why, what and how he had take the journey to his new residence. 

Rather than pick up the phone and begin a soleful conversation, or sit and write it in an email, I quickly looked back in my files and attached for his interest the speech I gave at the 2014 Ironman Awards Banquet when the scholarship was officially introduced. 

It merely skimmed through Tony’s last years, skipping many a chapter (as that would be the size of an encyclopedia) but I felt it covered off his questions.  He came back to me with an email full of love and caring, and with huge integrity – I was touched. 

So I thought it may be appropriate to reprint it now – not for mournful purposes but to let those who do not know who Tony Jackson is, and why Ironman New Zealand honoured him so. 

Following is the outline of the speech I gave.

Speech for the introduction of Tony Jackson Scholarship at Ironman Awards Dinner, 1 March 2014

Tony Jackson Scholarship

  When Janette from Ironman contacted me last year to moot the concept of a Tony Jackson scholarship I couldn’t have been more supportive.  For all the years that Ironman has been in New Zealand Tony would have helped many very ordinary people complete some extra ordinary feats;  while at the same time managed to achieve being a quiet extra-ordinary person himself.

Tony competed in every single New Zealand Ironman; since the very first one held in Auckland in 1985, until last year 2013, when he was too ill to compete – it was the first New Zealand Ironman Tony had not competed in - Tony passed away exactly seven days after that Ironman.

Tony was a very ordinary, happy man; a man who quietly managed to mentor, encourage, guide, instruct and enthuse every day ordinary people into doing things they had thought impossible to achieve.  Back in the 1980’s, long before Ironman, or Asics or New Balance picked up on the saying, Tony would tell people, “Nothing is impossible” but he always added  …  “to the willing mind.”   Tony lived his life by that motto of his.  And to many, competing in any triathlon, let alone an Ironman seemed a formidably impossible thing to achieve.  Yet Tony would show them that, with a willing mind, it was not. 

Tony was 45 years young when he started and finished that first New Zealand Ironman triathlon in 1985.  It is refreshing when one reads his old diaries and realises how different it was then – their training, their methods – they were real Ironmen in those days.

Tony was never a world beater – but the records do show he could turn out some good times. He qualified for Kona many times, but only went three times – even managing to podium place. 

Not by planning, but more by chance, as the years passed Tony ended up completing every other New Zealand Ironman – and helping others do so;  that is, until December 2007.

At Christmas time 2007 Tony was diagnosed with a brain tumour.  The worst kind of brain tumour one can have.  His Christmas gift was two major brain surgery operations with the outcome of being given the life expectancy of only twelve weeks. 

Ten weeks later, with the thought of only having about two more weeks to live -  and in the middle of his regime of radiotherapy and chemotherapy Tony started and finished his, and New Zealand’s,  24^th New Zealand Ironman. 

Months after that he had to endure a further series of invasive major brain surgery ;  yet, once again, Tony started and finished the 2009 New Zealand Ironman;  the 25^th and even managed a 2^nd place in his age group.

In the months following that Tony had yet more surgery, this time with plastic surgeons who had to remove & lift off his entire scalp, turn it around, replace it and reshape his hairline – he had staples and stitches around his entire head – yet in March 2010, Tony, again, started and finished the New Zealand Ironman, his 26^th.

The following summer Tony was still biking, swimming and running, but in January 2011 whilst out cycling with a good Ironman training mate, training for that year’s Ironman, Tony suffered a mini-stroke.  Whilst in Accident and Emergency at Auckland hospital he became paralysed down one side of his body.  I reflect with bemusement the looks on the medics faces when at 11 o’clock  that night, in A&E,  the medics rushing into our little cubicle to find Tony attempting to lean himself on the side of the hospital bed trying to do a Pilates routine that he thought would help to get his paralysed side working again.  Six weeks later in March 2011, Tony started and finished his 27^th New Zealand Ironman.  That was the 4^th Ironman that he completed after having been given only 12 weeks to live , four years earlier.

Two years ago in March 2012 with his willing mind, Tony started and finished what he knew would be his last ever Ironman.  It was his, and Ironman New Zealand’s 28^th.

Throughout all of those 28 years and particularly during the last five years of his own trials, Tony continued to help, and advise, and mentor others who had a goal of doing an Ironman – he proved to them  –..  “..if you have a willing mind, nothing is impossible.”

So last year when Ironman was on here in Taupo, Tony was back in Auckland, very ill in hospital.  But it was a special Ironman for Tony – for our son completed his own first Ironman – for us this was achieving the almost impossible – for no one would ever have expected this son to do an ironman – a drinker, a smoker, a night clubber, a recidivist electric puha smoker – even to Tony this would have seemed impossible – yet the impossible was achieved – our son did it for and because of Tony.

After finishing he returned to Auckland where Tony was in hospice care and presented the medal Tony in his hospital bed during the last ever moments that Tony had roused himself into some form of consciousness.  Tony gripped that medal in his left hand.  And there it stayed.  He died five days later with that medal still in his hand.  I am damned sure he would have arrived at the Pearly Gates and convinced St Peter that he had done his 29^th Ironman.

So this scholarship that Ironman New Zealand has developed comes with real meaning and purpose.  Over his 28 years of Ironmanning, and throughout those last five Ironman years, Tony would have helped, trained, coached, mentored, inspired, assisted and guided many people to achieve not only their first Ironman, but sometimes their 2^nd, 3^rd, 6^th or 10^th Ironman.  Ordinary people, whether 20 or 70; ordinary people, who without his encouragement would never have achieved that personal goal.

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This scholarship is New Zealand Ironman’s way of continuing Tony’s  and their belief to each person out there -  that, like everything in life, including Ironman -  ‘Nothing is impossible to the willing mind’.

These are the special two individuals who were the past two recipients.  Bring on the Tony Jackson scholar for next year!   

“There is nothing noble in being superior to 

your fellow man; true nobility is being superior 

to your former self.”  

Ernest Hemingway