A hands on Mayor

Stuff reports:

It was a fine winter’s day when a Waikato mayor loaded up his ute with a ladder and some handyman tools and set out on a mission to change the law.

Matamata-Piako Mayor Ash Tanner pulled up in Manawarū with a stack of freshly made, but illicit speed limit signs.

Without anyone knowing, he removed the 70kmh speed signs and replaced them with 50kmh lollipops – a move designed to slow down traffic that passes a local school, cafe and bicycle traffic that crosses the road at two points.

The new signs are made to regulation, but they don’t have the required sign-off from authorities and the maverick mayor was operating outside the law when he put them up on July 30. His council is now trying to tie up loose ends with NZTA to make the changes legal.

Tanner changed the speed signs out of frustration after years of battling the New Zealand Transport Agency [NZTA] to have the speed reduced, he told Stuff.

I’d say he is going to be easily re-elected.