{"id":339339,"date":"2026-03-20T15:34:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T15:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/339339\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T15:34:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T15:34:09","slug":"decade-long-fight-over-a-road-sign-in-central-hawkes-bay-tomoana-white-almost-went-to-jail-over-it-now-its-been-changed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/339339\/","title":{"rendered":"Decade-long fight over a road sign in Central Hawke\u2019s Bay – Tomoana White almost went to jail over it, now it\u2019s been changed"},"content":{"rendered":"

White grew up at Tapairu and remembered throwing stones at the sign while he waited for the school bus as a boy. <\/p>\n

\u201cI remember then it said Tapairu P\u0101 Road. At some stage when I was overseas working, it was changed. I came back and the word Tapairu was gone.\u201d <\/p>\n

Tomoana was incensed and began a campaign that would last for years. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe name is the most important part.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"TomoanaTomoana White is pleased to see the historic Tapairu P\u0101 Rd sign reinstated. Photo \/ Central Hawke’s Bay District Council<\/p>\n

He took down the offending sign, and the council reinstated it, about eight times.<\/p>\n

Eventually, Tomoana appeared in court for the destruction of the signs. <\/p>\n

\u201cI nearly went to jail. But those signs didn\u2019t belong there.\u201d <\/p>\n

Eventually, the signs stopped being replaced, and the name was painted correctly on the tarseal. <\/p>\n

Now, the council has installed new road signs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought I would never see it,\u201d said White. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m old now, and it\u2019s been going on so long.\u201d <\/p>\n

The reason the sign was changed is not clear, but the Tapairu Marae Committee was adamant the original name needed to be reinstated, as it was named for the history of the Tapairu P\u0101 and the surrounding land. <\/p>\n

The p\u0101 (now Tapairu Marae) was established across the river from the growing town of Waipawa. <\/p>\n

It hosted hundreds of M\u0101ori who came to appear at the Native Land Courts and, later, before the Hawke\u2019s Bay Native Lands Alienation Commission. <\/p>\n

The p\u0101 was named for the Rangitane chieftainess, Te Ruatotara, who married Tutaua, the chief of Tukipoho P\u0101 on Ongaonga Rd. Tapairu means high chieftainess. <\/p>\n

\"BevanBevan Thompson, left, and Amiria Nepe-Apatu attended an emotional ceremony to bless the new signage. Photo \/ Central Hawke’s Bay District Council<\/p>\n

The council\u2019s marae representative, Bevan Thompson, raised the issue with the council and, after six years of advocacy, said he was pleased it had changed. <\/p>\n

Land for the p\u0101 was gifted by Nepe Apatu, and the p\u0101 originally occupied the area that is now the Waipawa Golf Course and the Waipawa P\u0101ckhouse. <\/p>\n

Nepe Apatu married Amiria Ropiha from Pari o Mahu and they lived at Tapairu. <\/p>\n

Amiria longed for her family, so Apatu gifted land to her brothers so they could move to be near her. <\/p>\n

Repeated flooding forced the p\u0101 to move to higher ground in about 1867, and Amiria gifted land and her homestead to Tapairu P\u0101, allowing it to move to its current site and away from the risk of flooding. <\/p>\n

The road leading to the p\u0101 was logically named Tapairu P\u0101 Rd. <\/p>\n

CHB District councillor Amiria Nepe-Apatu attended an emotional ceremony to bless the new sign this month. <\/p>\n

\u201cKa mate kainga tahi, ka ora kainga rua,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the first home is destroyed, the second home will survive.\u201d <\/p>\n

Currently, the sign is spelled without a macron in \u201cPa\u201d, but after Hawke\u2019s Bay Today inquiries, CHB District Council group manager of infrastructure and asset management Mark Kinvig said this too would be corrected. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"White grew up at Tapairu and remembered throwing stones at the sign while he waited for the school…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[15408,1561,1558,1853,6186,25904,44092,15124,1976,78,702,302,1334,13617,11692,111,43,139,425,69,1523,1314,20383,312,7806,61,181545,2201,16550],"class_list":["post-339339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-almost","tag-bay","tag-been","tag-central","tag-changed","tag-correct","tag-decadelong","tag-fight","tag-hawkes","tag-in","tag-it","tag-its","tag-jail","tag-name","tag-nearly","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-now","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-road","tag-roads","tag-says","tag-sign","tag-to","tag-tomoana","tag-went","tag-white"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}