Media statement 2 April

Waitakere suggests Chris Timms Memorial Highway

The new motorway between the North Shore and Waitakere City, could be named for the late Chris Timms, Olympic double medallist, sports benefactor, businessman and flyer, if a Waitakere City Council suggestion is adopted.

The Council’s meeting on Wednesday 31 March, endorsed a suggestion from the Mayor, to advance the name Chris Timms Memorial Highway for consideration by Transit New Zealand.

When completed, the new motorway will link Waitakere City and North Shore City and incorporate the new upper harbour bridge that is currently being built.

Transit New Zealand has asked the Council for naming suggestions and the Council’s Massey Community Board will consider contenders at its next meeting.

However, the Council decided to offer the Chris Timms Memorial Highway as its own suggestion, to go forward with any nominations from the community board.

Both Mayor Bob Harvey and Councillor Ross Dallow paid fulsome tributes to the late Olympic yachtsman who died in a plane crash this month, while practising for the Taupo air show.

Timms won gold at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984, with Rex Sellars in the Tornado class, and the pair won silver four years later at Seoul.

Mr Timms was a founding member Waitakere Regional Sports Trust (Sport Waitakere) and served a three year term as chairman. He was also a founding member of the Don Oliver Youth Sports Foundation which is focussed on promoting young sporting talent in the Waitakere region. He took a very active role on the Stadium Development Board that is building The Trusts Stadium, in Central Park Drive, Henderson.

Chris’ was an expert rhododendron grower and in recent years he had taken up flying and become a member of the Warbirds organisation. He was rehearsing for a Warbirds airshow when his aircraft malfunctioned.

ENDS

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>