We offered to pub­lish the answers from any can­di­dates in the local body elec­tions and Kris Price who is stand­ing in the Lambton Ward stepped up for his “15 page views of fame”. 

1. You have 30 sec­onds to con­vince some­one to come to Welling­ton. What’s your pitch?
Show them a pho­to of our beau­ti­ful Welling­ton at its best on a sun­ny day. (Then tell them not to come dur­ing win­ter.)

2. How do you think traf­fic flow to the hos­pi­tal and air­port could be improved?
 Two words: Light Rail.

3. Where do you stand on the issue of open­ing up gov­ern­ment data?
 Mmm sweet data. I’m seri­ous­ly anal reten­tive about data. Let’s open it all up.

4. What plans have do you have to improve recycling/composting facil­i­ties?
 I want to see our bor­ing ovoid black trash cans replaced with colour­ful trash cans that sep­a­rate glass, plas­tic, paper, and gen­er­al trash.

5. What is your pol­i­cy on street alco­holics?
I sup­port a wet house and get­ting the DHB involved in treat­ment.

6. Do you sup­port pedes­tri­an­i­sa­tion of the Gold­en Mile? Why/Why not?
Yes. Pedes­tri­ans are equal users of our streetscape. It beau­ti­fies, increas­es val­ues, gives recre­ation, and goes hand-in-hand with PT route, which must hap­pen.

7. What’s the last local mar­ket you went to? What did you buy?
Uh-oh. I’m guess­ing New World isn’t the answer you’re look­ing for. Hilo farm­ers mar­ket about a month back count? ‘Spose that’s hard­ly local.

8. Describe your bicy­cle, or your favourite bus route?
 Giant Reign 2, full sus­pen­sion moun­tain bike. The num­ber 1 bus, because if you were a bus you’d want to be num­ber 1 too.

9. When did you last use the library, a com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre, or a coun­cil-run sports facil­i­ty?
 Last used the library, yes­ter­day. I read an archi­tec­ture mag­a­zine, and did some work.

10. Would you wel­come a cen­tral gov­ern­ment dri­ven “super-city” amal­ga­ma­tion of local author­i­ties?
If not, why not? Rod­ney can stick to screw­ing up Auck­land. We should amal­ga­mate the four cities, but vol­un­tar­i­ly, lead by our­selves, and slow­ly in order to get it right.

11. Do you think the coun­cil has a role in fos­ter­ing com­mu­ni­ty web­sites? If so, how?
Is Welling­ton­ista look­ing for some Coun­cil pork? (*ahem* Per­haps we should talk in pri­vate.) In seri­ous­ness: there’s plen­ty of easy stuff to do here.

12. Where do you stand on water privi­ti­sa­tion, and why?
It’s ide­o­log­i­cal­ly dri­ven and the argu­ments don’t stack up. I’ll nev­er sup­port pri­vatis­ing any crit­i­cal monop­oly infra­struc­ture such as this.

13. What city over­seas inspires your vision for Welling­ton? How?
Port­land and Van­cou­ver for pro-PT, cycling, and inten­si­fi­ca­tion. Too many Euro­pean cities for great squares, streetscapes, and exam­ples of mod­ern light rail.

14. Is the con­cept of demo­c­ra­t­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tion impor­tant to you? How so?
As a peon myself I quite enjoy the ben­e­fits liv­ing in a demo­c­ra­t­ic coun­try brings. Don’t get me start­ed on our new­ly crowned dic­ta­tor Ger­ry!

15. What do you think about com­muu­ni­ty gar­dens on pub­lic land?
A good use. There’s plen­ty of poor­ly tend­ed and used pub­lic land, so if some­one wants to do some­thing pos­i­tive with it, who could argue.