It Feels Good, People!
The other blockheads at the council table must follow.
Start with Mayor Cull and the remaining Stadium Councillors, some of whom, like Neil Collins, were bought by Sydney Brown – or so the rumours go.
YES. $10,000 of sparklers was all it took to get Fizzer Collins to fall off his budgie-seed perch. Think how much we’ve saved already!
We don’t doubt the GOBs have lined up a replacement or six with Dunedin’s, ahem, blue blood connections (see professional rugby/harness racing/SCF/pokie trusts/real estate/COC). Hell, they might as well wheel St Farry back in. How to keep that DEBT coming! $700 MILLION and climbing! This is a go-ahead kind of town! Root killer was applied to Presbyterianism years ago.
The bad news is Cr Collins collects a pay cheque for a few more months. Suggestion, Neil, pay it into the mayor’s fund – you’ve had enough cake, already. It might buy you the knighthood if you’re a good boy. But hey.
In debt we shall linger, in sickness and in health.
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Related Post and Comments:
1.1.13 Journalist sums up 2012, against the ‘odds’ how does it rate ?
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
There was argument today over Neil Collins having the dubious prize for the longest stretch as a councillor. Someone argued that he was dumped at one stage (which elections?) and replaced by the guy Soper, a policeman – who later resigned causing a by-election. Collins got re-elected. It’s claimed that treacle-claws Paul Hudson has been at DCC the longest. Who knew ?
Search engine term:
how do i take dunedin city council to court
I recall an election being called when Soper moved on, and Collins sliding back in after being turfed out at the previous election. Who is he trying to fool that he is the elder statesman of council. He may have fooled himself enough to think he could resign and pick up the accolades. Please don’t tell anyone that he got it wrong. He may decide to stay on.
Thanks Dave D. Unless someone knows the date history of local body elections I’ll search it (quietly) at DCC… I see he was first elected to council in 1989.
Do we think the previous search term relates to this one ? (miles apart in the search list but maybe maybe…)
damage due to council stormwater drain dcc
It must be election year again. In today’s oddity p7, Future of Otago, written by Trevor Kempton. What a load of crap he writes. Our rivers are flowing cow shit in the name of economic growth, our roads and cars get evermore covered in cow shit on gypsy day. Nothing has been done to the major flood problems that occur on the Taieri, and they can’t wait to throw money at the Tarras irrigation project. That no bank will touch, and even the participants don’t want to risk their own money. He then goes on with the final insult to our intelligence to say “Consultation involves careful listening and consideration”. Yeah Right. Just like the stadium got careful listening and consideration during the consultation process.
Given the F***up that is the DCC, I have no wish to see an end to ORC by amalgamation of the two councils – especially, in regards to consents. Some enmity between the two is very useful – as we shall see with the waterfront Dunedin Hotel application, subdivisions at Outram, and the like. The thing both councils are plagued by is they both scrape the bottom of the barrel (apart from a couple of councillors in either camp) for councillor candidates. That’s our fault, not theirs.
ODT Editorial (today)
http://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/editorial/242160/fine-words-need-actions
“It may seem early to start thinking about local government elections. However, late last year an important step was taken in making councils and our elected representatives more accountable. The Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill is an important milestone in progressing major reform of New Zealand’s local government sector. And it is now law. New Zealand’s 78 local authorities make up 4% of GDP, spend $7.8 billion per year of public money and manage $120 billion of assets.”
Several aspects and absences of information within the editorial don’t bear thinking about if you own an independent newspaper….
‘Fine words need action.’ That scares the hell out of me.
It is action that has gotten us all into the mess we have. What is desperately needed is ‘understanding.’ That is, and has been the missing ingredient for over ten years now, both by elected councils and administrations. Just how you can elect that element eludes me.
One only has to look at the performances of existing and past councillors to see that it is one huge lottery. Our Mayor Dave Cull is essentially a nice guy, but he displays a total lack of ‘understanding’ of the ramifications of what he deliberates on and frequently seems to miss the point totally. The classic example is how he has handled to whole stadium/rugby scenario and simply forgiving the ORFU debt in order to retain its patronage.
Most councillors also are essentially good people, but most show a deplorable lack of understanding of their function. This, in many cases after many years at the task. They seem to be prepared to take as gospel almost anything that the administration puts to them and approve accordingly. In the case of the stadium, it was dramatic the manner in which the mayor (at the time), the CEO, and a few vocal sycophantic councillors were seduced by unelected rugby people into committing the ratepayers to what is now shown to be some $150+ million of debt, based on a ‘fraudulent’ “cross my heart, absolute assurance that the stadium would cost not a cent over $188 million all up, and that the ratepayers would not be asked for an extra cent. If it could not be done out of existing resources he personally, would not ‘have a bar of it’.” This from an unelected advocate in the form of Malcolm Farry.
Council as a majority accepted this, ‘hook line and sinker’, thus committing the ratepayers to a totally unknown outcome. We now know the present position. What we don’t know is the future outcome, except that it will be horrendously expensive. Ditto for all the other “follies” such as the OSM, Town Hall Conference Centre et al. This is the record on which the Mayor and most councillors stand when offering themselves for re-election.
The only untainted seem to be Lee Vandervis, Jinty MacTavish and by default, Teresa Stevenson. The rest? A curse on all their houses.
Garrick Tremain’s cartoon today hits the spot.
Hotel bucks
Garrick Tremain – 11 January 2013
Billish Acklinish wrote large…….. not the second drink driving conviction
ODT (10.1.13): Best day of my life: Bill Acklin
*****
ODT (11.1.13): Best day of my life: Bev Butler
“We laughed, joking how some people go to extraordinary lengths to cover up the truth.”
### ODT Online Fri, 11 Jan 2013
Opinion
End to profligate spending
By Lyndon Weggery
While it is good news the US Government has seemingly avoided its ”fiscal cliff”, can the same be said for Dunedin? In November 2012, the international credit agency Standard and Poors formally put the Dunedin City Council on a negative credit watch, warning that the council must address its debt or be downgraded. Such a move will lead to interest rate rises on new loans and, what is worse, any existing loan that needs to be refinanced will attract extra costs. This is an added worry to ratepayers, as our interest bill is already $19 million for the current year, thereby breaching the council’s self-imposed limit of no more than 8% of total revenue for the next three years. Did the council see this coming? You wouldn’t think so, given its premature boasting in the Long Term Plan (released just four months before) that S and P’s grading was a ”remarkable vote of confidence”.
Read more
- Lyndon Weggery is chairman of the Dunedin Householders and Ratepayers Association.
It must have been lovely being in a place where he wasn’t within 5 minutes recognised as having outstandingly mediocre talent.
He didn’t know where Vanuatu was! Say no more
It’s about half an hour out of Huntly isn’t it? Longer if you have to walk not drive.
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Cr Collins doesn’t appear to have achieved much at all for his many years on Council. Except for the cakes. And strangely, he attests to no intelligence whatsoever in the way he can’t link stadium to rates. Good riddance, Neil. You have been a generally pleasant, although often weaselly, complete waste of time and space.
(Glad Syd helped you with the real estate.)