A Wellington City Council candidate running on a platform to fix infrastructure has literally driven a metal campaign spike through an internet cable, cutting service to a dozen homes.
Nathan Meyer, a Motukairangi/Eastern ward candidate with a “lower rates, fixing our infrastructure” commitment, confirmed he personally erected the sign opposite Hataitai Beach early on Sunday morning.
He did not recall hearing or feeling anything untoward as he drove the spike into the earth shortly after 11.59pm on Friday – the exact moment Wellington candidates are free to erect campaign billboards on council land. He did not realise he was about to sever the underground cable for 12 Evans Bay homes.
“I apologise … I had no intent of disrupting services,” he said when called on Sunday.
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“This is the first I have heard of it.”
KEVIN STENT/Stuff
Chorus worker Seb Tollenaar looks for the site of a broken internet cable in Evans Bay, Wellington. He located it to where council candidate Nathan Meyer, campaigning on fixing infrastructure, drove a metal spike through an internet cable.
He said there were no markings pointing to underground cables and followed council rules about signs “to the T”.
If it was shown he had caused the outage to the homes he would “do something to put it right”, but could not immediately say what.
“It was a pure accident.”
KEVIN STENT/Stuff
Wellington council candidates were allowed to start putting up signs at 11.59pm on Friday. Most avoided the underground cables.
Chorus worker Seb Tollenaar was on site on Sunday and used a wire locator to find the break in the line. One of Meyer’s metal spikes could be seen going directly the plastic casing, cutting about 12 lines, then continuing about 100mm further into earth below.
It was just luck nobody hit nearby buried power cables, Tollenaar said.
KEVIN STENT/Stuff
The green internet cable had a metal spike driven right through it.
He urged candidates not to use metal spikes and to drive them in shallow if they did, as they quite often severed underground cables.
The repair bill would be “a few thousand” dollars and would be sent to the person who caused the damage, he said.
Amanda Woodbury, who lives nearby on Evans Bay Pde, said her son was up at midnight on Friday when the internet went down. She called on Meyer to pay the internet bills for the 12 affected homes for a year and buy them each a case of wine.
“We got our beautiful new $3000 television we can’t watch and I wanted to watch MasterChef tonight.”
Council rules state candidates must get approval before erecting signs on council land. It also has an eight-page booklet of guidelines for erecting signs in public places. This says candidates are responsible for checking for underground services and for fixing any damage they cause.
“We are obviously going to have to take a look at our sites … to double-check there is no sensitive infrastructure,” council spokesman Richard MacLean said.
