Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Kapiti News
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Councillor centre of investigation DAVID HAXTON Public details about an in-house council investigation into allegations councillor Jackie Elliott breached elected members code of conduct will be available this month. Cr Murray Bell laid three complaints against Elliott for alleged breaches of protocol which involve an email to a councillor, an email to a staff member and a press release
public excluded so far so there wouldn’t be anymore comment on the issue at this stage but it would become “public through a report to council on July 24”. Council has budgeted $10,000 to $15,000 for the process. Dale Evans, from Paraparaumu Beach, said ratepayers needed to know “the full story behind why mayor Ross Church and councillors have launched a costly process,” against Elliott.
criticising council staff. Elliott, who has rejected the complaints, has been accused of being factually incorrect and using unwarranted and threatening language. A panel, comprising councillors Mike Cardiff, Janet Holborow and a senior lawyer has interviewed councillors and is expected to interview Elliott this week. A council staff member said the issue had been dealt with in
encourage ratepayers and the general public to attend and participate in this hearing.” Cr K Gurunathan, who has written about the complaint issue on page six in his Notes from a Corner Dairy column, says in over 20 years of covering local politics, “no councillor has been subject to a process of an alleged breach”. He cited three political risks and felt a “Pandora’s Box” had been opened.
“As ratepayers, we have a right to know the full facts of these allegations. “Ratepayers do not want a behind-closed-doors process where the public are kept in the dark.” He wanted to set up a public panel “to hear these charges in an open and public process”. “I am contemplating making preparations to hire a community hall and I want an information campaign to
Digger operator steers clear of the norm CLOE WILLETTS As a teenager, Haley Adamson knew her career path would not lead her to an office or rope her into anything that was not fuelled by her childhood passion for hard hats, gumboots and heavy machinery. Now 28, the Lower Hutt local is driving one of the newest and largest diggers as part of MacKays to Peka Peka Expressway developments and is turning industry earthworking stereotypes on their head. “When I told people I wanted to be a digger driver, they told me I couldn’t because it’s a man’s job,” said the Goodmans Contractors employee, who works at the project’s Peka Peka site. “I told them ‘no, girls can do anything’ — and it just made me more determined.” The operator behind one of the innovative new GPS-tracked diggers, which weighs 50 tonnes, Miss Adamson is the younger of two females employed as a machine operator for the project. Having started with Goodmans in 2011, which led to a string of jobs including work on the Mill Creek wind farm and Palmerston North’s North East Industrial Site, the selfproclaimed tomboy is turning heads.
LOADS OF TALENT: Haley Adamson is proving herself in the earth-working industry as one of the MacKays to Peka Peka Expressway’s most skilled bulk moving digger drivers. PHOTO: CLOE WILLETTS / KAP090714CWHALEYADAMSON
“Haley was driving a 45-tonne digger at Mill Creek and was good at loading bulk and getting the dirt out, which is what we get paid for,” Peka Peka site foreman Robert Jordan said.
“She’s pretty much the only woman driver here who’s worked on swamp pads and been digging out the soft sand you can’t sit the digger on. “Now she’s up there as one of
the best in the company when it comes to bulk moving because she proved herself.” What saw her begin as a labourer led to work on dumpers and then compactors before
diving in to the digger-driving role she now “loves”. “My whole family is into it and I started at 16 by working for my father, who had a small earth-works company,” she said. “Then I got my job at Goodmans through my brother, who was a foreman here at the time. “I enjoy everything about it — working with great guys, always doing something different and the challenges.” Describing Mill Creek as a standout project, Miss Adamson recalled it being “a pretty funny job because, at one point, we got winded off and had portaloos flying around”. Not fazed by her positioning as one of few females in the industry, the determined operator said her male colleagues are supportive. “They respect you and look after you, bringing you lunch or coffee sometimes. “They give you a hard time, but you just give it back.” Currently studying to further her bulk earthmoving qualifications, Miss Adamson, who holds her wheels, tracks and rollers licence, said the role is a hands-on one. “I have a big hook on my digger, for example, and if it breaks, I have to get out there with a crescent and try and bash it off,” she said. “That was me this morning, and I just love it.”
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