Auckland super city subverts democracy…

Thanks James.

This is the cold word on “upright commercial pillars of society”.
See any similarities to the Dunedin crew? You do?
And you’re still keen on a super ward.
Think about it.

****

### nzherald.co.nz 4:00 AM Friday Feb 12, 2010
Opinion: Brian Rudman on Auckland
Democracy kicked out the window
By Brian Rudman
If it wasn’t my money they were after, the sight of John Waller, the chairman of Bank of New Zealand, Hugh Burrett, the former chief executive of ASB Bank, and Greg Muir, former chairman of Hanover Finance, cap in hand together at the Auckland Town Hall, trying to touch up Mayor John Banks for a $40 million loan would be hugely amusing.
They’re members of the Eden Park Trust Board, and need the money urgently, because, in the words of banker Waller, “the banks won’t lend because the park can’t service it …” With not even their closest banker mates willing to float them a loan for old times’ sake, who are they now trying to shake down?

Auckland Regional Council chairman Mike Lee is blunt. “Aucklanders have been bilked. Most of the powers of the present local government in Auckland will be devolved to unelected, unaccountable CCOs – no doubt to be stacked with the usual businessmen.”

Read more

-Brian Rudman is a Herald columnist focussing on Auckland issues

Post by Elizabeth Kerr

Latest on Dunedin’s offshore oil and gas prospects

This has to be reason enough to challenge DCC’s proposed Dunedin Harbourside Plan Change in terms of purpose and extent.

Support existing businesses, including the engineering cluster, remaining on the harbourside for a very long time!

—

### ODT Online Fri, 26 Feb 2010
US giant joins Origin in oil, gas search
By Simon Hartley
United States-based giant Anadarko Petroleum Corporation is to contribute $US30 million ($NZ43.1 million) towards exploration of oil and gas prospects about 65km off the coast of Dunedin – with the possibility of a deep-water oil rig arriving next year. Australian-listed Origin Energy, which holds the exploration permit covering the Carrack and Caravel prospects, announced Anadarko’s 50% interest yesterday.
Read more

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

What. Warming up bands for the (new) stadium enterprise, slowly.

@ForBarrStadium Check out The Black Seeds are coming to Dunedin next month to play at Carisbrook:) good times!! http://bit.ly/ddzAcq

****

### stuff.co.nz 26 Feb 2010
Entertainment
The Black Seeds at Carisbrook
The Black Seeds will play at Carisbrook as part of the Rebel Sport Super 14 billing on Saturday 20 March 2010. The concert will follow the Highlanders versus Sharks game. Tickets available now!

Tickets are on sale via TicketDirect and the usual local outlets”.

The Black Seeds are an 8-piece Wellington band that have carved out their reputation on the back of two double-platinum selling albums, and a masterful 8-piece live show regarded as one of the best in New Zealand.
Read more

Post by Elizabeth Kerr

Port Otago: “Next generation” project

UPDATED

### ODT Online Sat, 27 Feb 2010
Port Otago proposing to deepen channel
By Simon Hartley
Port Otago’s up to $100 million plans for deepening 13km of the its shipping channel is its largest single capital expenditure project. Dredging began in 1866 and has since removed about 34 million cubic metres of spoil. Port reporter Simon Hartley looks at the reasoning behind, and the likelihood of opposition to, Port Otago’s latest plans.

Port Otago’s plans to deepen its shipping channel by 2m to 15m is essentially a future-proofing project so the port remains viable for major shipping lines. However, myriad environmental, recreational and commercial concerns may be raised because of the removal and disposal of up to 7.2 million cubic metres of a mix of sand and silt.
Read more

• The assessment report is at www.portotago.co.nz

Next Generation Quick Links:
The Project
Project Consultative Group
Consent Documentation
Media Communications
Photo Gallery

****

### ODT Online Fri, 26 Feb 2010
$100m harbour plans revealed
By Simon Hartley
Information on plans for a restored beach near Harington Point, a $10 million wharf extension and a $100 million channel-deepening project was released by Port Otago yesterday.
Read more

Related Post:
21.2.10 So where’s the media explosion?

Post by Elizabeth Kerr

Hear Ye!

This comment deserves an escalation:

Phil 2010/02/22 at 11:17am

Some people will wave around the $130 million GMP contract as evidence of the cost for construction. It’s already been established that the published contract excluded several significant cost items, estimated at around $30+ million. All P&G costs, the contractor’s contingency sum and, best of all, the contractor’s profit margin, were all specifically excluded from the published price. There’s been mention that those items were later added in, with no adjustment to the original price. Suggesting that Hawkins Construction are doing this contract for free. As, of course, we all believe. However, unlike the original “exclusion” contract, this apparent revised contract seems to be missing from public view. Even the ODT tried, and failed, to get an answer to the question of contract exclusions.

In the current atmosphere of silence, draw your own conclusions.

Preliminary and General (P and G) costs relate to both a contractor’s on site and off site costs.

On site costs can be for site sheds, canteen, telephones, vehicles, tools and plant, management, insurance, surveying set-out costs, scaffolding, hoardings etc.

Off site costs typically relate to head office costs such as rent, staff salaries, insurances, ACC, and accounts.

Phil probably has a better working description of “P&G”.

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

DCC Art in Public Places: New work commissioned

UPDATED

ODT 25.2.10: DCC spends $45,000 on tooth sculptures

****

Dunedin City Council
Media Release

Putting A Smile Into Harbour’s Head

Plans for the next Dunedin City Council Art in Public Places commission have been released, and harbourside visitors will soon have something to smile about.

Regan Gentry, a Wellington based artist, currently living in Rotterdam, is creating a larger than life sculpture titled ‘Harbour Mouth Molars’ which will feature six wisdom teeth constructed from concrete and Oamaru Stone. Each tooth will be roughly the size of an up-ended Austin mini car and be arranged in two opposing rows on the edge of the foreshore.

The installation, which is due to arrive on-site in April, will stand on the Kitchener Street Reserve at the head of the harbour.

Mr Gentry is well-known for his ‘Flour Power’ steel representation of a sheaf of wheat which stands at the intersection of Christchurch’s Colombo and High Streets, and ‘Green Islands’, the native tree look-alikes made from No.8 fencing wire which were recently relocated from the Four Plinths located outside Te Papa to their new permanent home in the Wellington Botanic Gardens.

Dunedin’s public art activity has been fairly static for a number of years and it is our intention to increase the opportunities for public art projects to enliven our city.

The commission uses part of the DCC’s Art In Public Places budget of $100,000 which is implemented over a two year cycle, and builds on the city’s previous commissioning policy including the 2008 installation of ‘Kuri/Dog’ by Stephen Mulqueen.

Contact DCC on 477 4000.

Last reviewed: 24 Feb 2010 4:11pm

Post by Elizabeth Kerr

Disclaimer: Elizabeth Kerr is a former member of the DCC Art in Public Places Committee. She resigned from the committee to avoid any potential conflict of interest associated with her views on the stadium project.

SH88 realignment: Are ratepayers buying the land twice?

The Dunedin City Council is still waiting to confirm land purchases. Carisbrook Stadium Trust has been buying up some of the ‘necessary’ land – oh, and there is an agreement in place “for the trust to sell it to the council at the price at which it was purchased”. So wait a minute, DCC funds CST to buy the land, then has to buy it back from CST?

Surely, I have made a mistake? Although, I’m not the kind of person who would ever understand high finance. Small question: WHO is clipping the ticket here, and for what profits? The ‘good’ burghers of Dunedin – the very tight few – have some extraordinary explaining to do. That rhymes.

The ‘few’ names are apparent via the New Zealand Companies Office register.

### ODT Online Wed, 24 Feb 2010
Construction due to start on bridge
By Mark Price
Construction work is ready to begin in the next few days on the new bridge over the Water of Leith that will carry State Highway 88 past the new Forsyth Barr Stadium. Dunedin City Council general manager city environment Tony Avery said yesterday the first step would be to drive piles for the bridge.
Read more

Post by Elizabeth Kerr

David Davies gives a hard message or a softener?

The line continues for ever and a day, what aren’t we being told?

### ODT Online Wed, 24 Feb 2010
Stadium company advises of risks
By David Loughrey
A forecast financial surplus of more than $3 million for the company set up to run the Forsyth Barr Stadium has come with extensive warnings of the risks the company faces in “an uncertain future commercial environment”. Dunedin Venues Management Ltd (DVML) has a budgeted financial target of a surplus of more than $3 million in each of the 2011-12 and 2012-13 financial years, after money from seating packages and sponsorship has been raised, but before the servicing or repayment of any debt.

But as the stadium was built, [DVML chief executive David Davies] had no doubt “things will come out of the woodwork”.

Read more

Post by Elizabeth Kerr

D Scene – Stadium countdown

### D Scene 24-2-10
What’s next for the Octagon? (front cover)
Radical plans to revamp the Octagon have been viewed by city councillors. #Bookmark

Plans may be shelved (page 3)
By Michelle Sutton
Plans for a radical revamp of Dunedin’s Octagon, described by Mayor Peter Chin as “visionary”, seem doomed to gather dust on a shelf.
{continues} #Bookmark

[Use of the word “Architect” is legally protected under the New Zealand Registered Architects Act (2005). On 21 August 2009 a query was put to the Chief Executive of the New Zealand Registered Architects Board (NZRAB) seeking to clarify if Fred van Brandenburg was a registered architect. The same day a reply was received that Mr Brandenburg was not registered and that NZRAB was beginning a procedure to get him registered. On 12 November 2009, subject to a further query, the NZRAB chief executive confirmed that Mr Brandenburg was now a New Zealand Registered Architect, registration number 2493. -Elizabeth Kerr]

3D may come to Dunedin cinema (page 3)
Hoyts are expected to announce Dunedin’s first 3D cinema theatre next month. Hoyts Octagon location manager Darryl McLeod cautioned there could be some difficulties. “There are no guarantees.”
{continues} #Bookmark

Mobile kitchen proving popular (page 5)
By Wilma McCorkindale
“Please can I have some more?” It was a common question from Otago University students lining up for fresh fruit and a cooked meal at the Otago Farmers Market new mobile kitchen launched during Orientation Week on Monday. Otago Farmers Market Trust chairman Paul Crack said it had been purpose-built to promote healthy eating and to show the public how to cook seasonal foods from the Otago Farmers Market.
{continues} #Bookmark

Register to read D Scene online at http://fairfaxmedia.newspaperdirect.com/

Vandalism message (page 5)
Dunedin city has been dubbed New Zealand’s capital of heritage vandalism by disgruntled city landlord Jeff Dickie. Dickie erected this sign [pictured] on one of his tenanted buildings in George St depicting his version of a new city slogan yesterday, claiming the city council had a lack of interest on the heritage value of some city buildings.
{continues} #Bookmark

[The Dunedin Heritage Fund is not “a city council fund”, as mentioned in the article. The Fund is a separate legal entity to that of “Dunedin City Council”, and has its own deed of constitution. The Fund is jointly administered by representatives of Council and New Zealand Historic Places Trust. For more information contact the Fund secretary Pam Jordan at Dunedin City Council. -Elizabeth Kerr, former NZHPT Otago Branch chair and representative on the DHF Committee]

Wards format still open (page 6)
By Wilma McCorkindale
The future format of Dunedin City Council wards remains undecided with a new March deadline given by the Local Government Commission. Local Government Commission chief executive Donald Riezebos said commissioners were striving to deliver representation reviews for a number of New Zealand centres.
{continues} #Bookmark

****

Talk: Dunedin on Dunedin (page 8)
Your say: Letters to the editor
Stadium stance by Ross White, Dunedin
Investigation key by Peter Attwooll, Dunedin
Well answered by Gavin MacDonald, St Kilda
Pre-draft plan by Bill Jeffreys, Woodhaugh
#Bookmark

****

Details: The finer points (pages 10-11)
Waste not: New processes for plant
There may be not a drop of water to drink, in spite of it being everywhere, at the Tahuna Wastewater Treatment Plant in Dunedin. But it’s getting purer by the day as the city council takes plunges into the second stage of its upgrade. Wilma McCorkindale reports.
{continues} #Bookmark

Counting down: Stadium countdown (pages 12-13)
Stadium bosses are on a count down. Michelle Sutton reports.
Five hundred and twenty two days to go until stadium D day – and counting. Well, stadium bosses are. Numbers from an old cricket scoreboard hanging in the Carisbrook Stadium Trust offices serves as a daily reminder to staff working towards the August 1, 2011, completion date, of how many days are left to go.
{continues} #Bookmark

Dunedin eyes 3D industry (page 18)
By Michelle Sutton
Dunedin is gearing up to become New Zealand’s 3D hub. 3D experts say the city is poised to cash in on the multimillion-dollar industry, which is gaining momentum and growing in NZ on the back of 3D hit Avatar. They say Dunedin’s film industry is picking up more 3D work, and is well positioned to become the country’s 3D hub, with the skills and experience to cover work in television, sports, animation and cinema.
{continues} #Bookmark

Post by Elizabeth Kerr

Meanwhile on the Union lawn, brainwash a student or three

“Haaii… come buy beers and a pie for lunch at the stadium anytime soon, guys!”

****

@ForBarrStadium
is down at tent city on the Union lawn for O week! Come down and have a chat to us http://bit.ly/bmyjy2

@ForBarrStadium
Huge big ups to Andy & crew for promoting the Forsyth Barr Stadium down at O week!! Thanks guys:) http://bit.ly/9b0E1h

Post by Elizabeth Kerr

Eion Edgar predicts

Thanks to @ajamesgreen for this tweet:

@10PARK @five15design Eion Edgar predicts in 5 years rugby will be only 20% of (use/revenue?) at stadium http://bit.ly/ed1G0

### RNZ National Monday, 22 February 2010 at 10:09am
Nine To Noon, with Kathryn Ryan
Feature guest – Sir Eion Edgar
Businessman and philanthropist, Sir Eion’s also Senior New Zealander of the year. (duration: 32′02″)
Audio Ogg Vorbis MP3

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

More of the same won’t fix NZ’s economic problems

### sstlive.co.nz Last updated 05:00 21/02/2010
Epoch-defining insight … and the govt missed it
By Rod Oram – Sunday Star Times
Opinion: Rip, shit and bust is a classic strategy, seductive to many corporates and countries. It often looks good in the short term. Exponents exploit abundance such as natural resources, cheap labour or lax regulation to make quick profits.

Yet in their careless haste, they sow the seeds of their own destruction. They over-exploit their present opportunity and under-invest in their future. In due course, the enterprise or nation goes bust.

Take an oil and gas producer such as the UK. For 40 years it has lived high on the hog of cheap fuel and lavish royalties from the North Sea. Now both are dwindling fast, it has a crippling hole in government revenues, energy policy and industrial strategy.

Or take investment banks in the US and Europe and finance companies in New Zealand. They profited by scoffing at feeble regulations over the past decade. Now their heavy losses are borne not by their shareholders but by savers and taxpayers.

Not all disasters are purely financial. Exponents can also blight the land they exploit, as colonial foresters did here or plantation farmers are today in the Amazon and Indonesia.

Yet, this is exactly the economic strategy our government is proposing for New Zealand.

Yes, the government understands our natural resources are the key to our prosperity. But it can only see how to flog them harder, not nurture them smarter.

Read more

Post by Elizabeth Kerr

So where’s the media explosion?

Carefully, the first media release aired at Christchurch yesterday. Since Lyttelton Port Company Ltd (LPC) is a listed company, of course a letter had already been circulated to LPC shareholders.

### stuff.co.nz Last updated 12:54 19/02/2010
Lyttelton Port committed to merger talks
By Alan Wood – BusinessDay.co.nz
Lyttelton Port of Christchurch has committed to “detailed negotiations” on a merger opportunity with its main South Island rival Port Otago. The two ports have issued a joint statement saying merger negotiations will continue with the ports having started the potential merger process more than a year ago. Both companies are treating this project with the utmost urgency.
Read more

****

The (lapdog) ODT announcement followed – not page 1 material, if you sneezed you missed it in today’s print edition.

### ODT Online Fri, 19 Feb 2010
Lyttelton and Otago ports move merger talks to next stage
Lyttelton Port Company Ltd (LPC) and Port of Otago Ltd (POL) are moving to the next phase of merger talks. “The boards of Lyttelton Port Company Ltd and Port of Otago Ltd have agreed that continuing to work towards a potential operational merger is warranted,” the companies said in a joint statement. The next stage involves talks on the content of a report prepared by Antipodes Capital as part of the first stage of the project. The structure being considered involves the legal separation of the infrastructure assets from the operations and commercial activities of each port.
Read more

****

Yep, sounds like ‘don’t encourage difficult questions from the natives’ – the shareholders, the exporters, the unions et al – noooo, because as everyone knows decisions on the merger, or anything like this in corporate infrastructural scale, have been made months ago. The ports merger is a fait accompli.

Only now are we starting to see the stage-managed PR rollout/suppression tactics (yawn), designed to keep corporate lids down on all sorts of things, many of them legal and financial.

What happens to POL’s local executive and administration? Hear the hark of Christchurch for another of our corporate head offices (POL).

Will the Otago Southland region be well served by the ports merger?

Where are the independent critical analyses from business leaders and merchants in response? Hello, anyone home at the Otago Daily Times? How much is this sinking or benefitting our region?

Does Fonterra see advantages or disadvantages?

And what of the international shipping conglomerates and the ways they will want to operate in future? It’s not enough just to talk about the next generation of large boats – many of these will be ‘slower’ vessels, how will our fresh produce get to significant international markets in perfect condition to obtain premium prices? We can’t afford slow boats to China or anywhere else. Is it feasible to use air freighting again, at scale?

It was bad enough that people sold their souls to dairy conversions in the South through greed and ugly (now nonforthcoming) bank lending. What does losing local control of our major deep-water port mean to the future of Otago Southland?

Somebody had better start explaining things fast, from every conceivable hard-arsed angle.

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Whatever happened to the Bird’s Nest?

Some call the $450-million ‘Bird’s Nest’, built for the Olympics, a white elephant. Over the winter, management hoped to generate revenue with a snow park, but attendance has been sparse.

### latimes.com February 15, 2010
Beijing’s National Stadium is on thin ice
By Lily Kuo – Beijing
Beijing is hosting its own version of the Winter Olympics. Inside the architectural wonder of the capital’s National Stadium, children on rubber doughnuts race on the snow. Teenagers and adults slide slowly down a low ski slope. In the background, a band plays ’90s Chinese rock on a stage flanked by fake snow peaks.

The snow park is the latest effort to create a new life for the stadium, known as the Bird’s Nest.

The “Happy Snow and Ice Season” will run all winter at the stadium where Chinese directors staged a stunning opening ceremony for the 2008 Summer Olympic Games and Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt set world records. Now slushy mounds of machine-made snow and a single ski slope occupy the grounds.

The Bird’s Nest is expensive. Tickets to the snow park are $26. Then visitors use a swipe card to rack up charges for rentals, games and food. They pay at the end.

“I don’t know how much we’ve paid today. It could be as much as my month’s salary,” said Ma Tianjun.

Ma, who drove an hour to get to the park, said he realised too late how expensive it would be. “Once you board the thieves’ ship, you can only go forward,” he said, using an old Beijing saying.

Read more

Related posts:
1.3.09 But, real stadium architecture… + Bird’s Nest Video (1of5)
2.3.09 Bird’s Nest videos continued

Post by Elizabeth Kerr

Dunedin City Council meeting – Monday 22 February 2010

WHERE: Council Chamber, Municipal Chambers
WHEN: Starts 2pm

Agenda – Council – 22/02/2010 (PDF, 104.8 kb, new window)

Report – Council – 22/02/2010 (PDF, 76.2 kb, new window)
Proposed District Plan Change 11: Earthworks

Report – Council – 22/02/2010 (PDF, 1.6 mb, new window)
Stadium Stakeholders Group Report

Report – Council – 22/02/2010 (PDF, 34.9 kb, new window)
Council Meeting in Middlemarch

Report – Council – 22/02/2010 (PDF, 321.7 kb, new window)
The Proposed Amended Traffic and Parking Bylaw

Report – Council – 22/02/2010 (PDF, 183.7 kb, new window)
Statement of Intent from Dunedin Venues Management Limited (DVML)

Post by Elizabeth Kerr

DCC on CST and DVML roles

Dunedin City Council
Media Release

Roles of Carisbrook Stadium Charitable Trust and Dunedin Venues Management Ltd Clarified

Following the annual revision of the service level agreement between the Dunedin City Council and the Carisbrook Stadium Charitable Trust (CSCT), a further definition of the roles has evolved.

In making these distinctions public Mayor Peter Chin says “With the establishment of Dunedin Venues Management Ltd (DVML) it’s timely to clarify roles, functions and accountabilities of those involved in the stadium project.”

The CSCT has the on-going responsibility for the construction of the stadium on time, on budget and fit for purpose in accordance with the Hawkins construction contract. The effect of this is that the CSCT is responsible for ensuring that the stadium is ready to be handed over on 1 August 2011 and that it is a tested, functioning stadium by that date.

CSCT will continue to operate as a charitable trust to solicit and receive donations and distribute them in accordance with the purposes of its trust deed.

On the other hand DVML now has responsibility for ensuring that there is a series of events booked to use its facilities after the completed stadium is handed over by the CSCT following commissioning trials. To achieve this DVML’s on-going role is to promote and market the stadium locally, nationally and internationally, to operate the stadium efficiently, enter into contracts with suppliers of food, beverage, and merchandise, sell sponsorship, seating products and otherwise explore every other revenue earning opportunity. DVML now employs all the staff it is anticipated will be required to do that.

Given these changes in roles, it is appropriate for DVML to become the employer of all of the staff rather than CSCT.

Mayor Chin concludes “This process has evolved gradually in response to the changing needs of the stadium project. It has become clear that, on completion, the successful operation of the stadium will require specialist skills and particular professionalisms, so that the role of DVML has grown. CSCT still has very important work to do and, in bringing the stadium this far, has already successfully achieved a very great deal.”

Contact DCC on 477 4000.

Last reviewed: 12 Feb 2010 11:05am

Post by Elizabeth Kerr

Who pays for the fan zone and area events?

### ODT Online Thu, 18 Feb 2010
World Cup fan zones proposed
By Hamish McNeilly
Otago and Southland organisers are finalising their 2011 Rugby World Cup plans, which include special fan zones for Dunedin, Queenstown and Invercargill.
Read more

Post by Elizabeth Kerr

Poster details

Images: Anonymous source.

Post by Elizabeth Kerr

For urban designers, speculators and stadium nuts

We love pop-up maps!!!

Today, at Fast Company’s website, William Bostwick profiles Rob Carter’s Metropolis, a 9-minute history of Charlotte, North Carolina.

Metropolis, Bostwick says, is a trend trifecta: cartography, cut and folded paper, and urban history. The animation, made from a sequence of aerial pictures layered on top of each other, transforms Charlotte “from Native American trading post to cotton-age boom town to tower-spiked banking hub in just a few folds.”
Fast Company Link

5LoveMyself 15 February 2010
View full animation, Metropolis (2008), on Carter’s site. (9:30 mins)

More…

“Metropolis is a quirky and very abridged narrative history of the city of Charlotte, North Carolina. It uses stop motion video animation to physically manipulate aerial still images of the city (both real and fictional), creating a landscape in constant motion. Starting around 1755 on a Native American trading path, the viewer is presented with the building of the first house in Charlotte. From there we see the town develop through the historic dismissal of the English, to the prosperity made by the discovery of gold and the subsequent roots of the building of the multitude of churches that the city is famous for. Now the landscape turns white with cotton, and the modern city is ‘born’, with a more detailed re-creation of the economic boom and surprising architectural transformation that has occurred in the past twenty years.

Charlotte is one of the fastest growing cities in the country, primarily due to the continuing influx of the banking community, resulting in an unusually fast architectural and population expansion that shows no sign of faltering despite the current economic climate. However, this new downtown Metropolis is therefore subject to the whim of the market and the interest of the giant corporations that choose to do business there. Made entirely from images printed on paper, the animation literally represents this sped up urban planners dream, but suggests the frailty of that dream, however concrete it may feel on the ground today. Ultimately the video continues the city development into an imagined hubristic future, of more and more skyscrapers and sports arenas and into a bleak environmental future. It is an extreme representation of the already serious water shortages that face many expanding American cities today; but this is less a warning, as much as a statement of our paper thin significance no matter how many monuments of steel, glass and concrete we build.”
Vimeo Link

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

D Scene – “throwing rocks at the stadium project”

### D Scene 17-2-10
Editorial: Not a case of for or against (page 2)
The letter from Ray James in this week’s Talk (p6) highlights one of the pitfalls of journalism: the assumption that if a newspaper runs a story perceived to be “against” something, that the publication has an editorial line opposed to it.
Mr James’ bugbear is D Scene’s coverage of the Forsyth Barr at University Plaza stadium, and last week’s lead story – based on a leaked copy of a Dunedin City Council-commissioned review of the Otago Rugby Football Union.
{continues}

Register to read D Scene online at http://fairfaxmedia.newspaperdirect.com/

Tempers flare at meeting (page 4)
Tempers flared at a Dunedin City Council forum last week, with councillors clashing with Dunedin Ratepayers and Householders Association representatives. DRHA chairman Lyndon Weggery used the forum to deliver the association’s take on aspects of the pre-draft annual plan.
{continues}

****

Talk: Dunedin on Dunedin
Your say: Letters to the editor (page 6)
Stadium concerns by Boyd Clark, Helensborough
Stadium project by Ray James, Tainui
Pre-draft Plan by Stan Martin, Dunedin
New slogan by Diane Yeldon, Wakari

****

Still in the pilot’s seat at 73 (page 25)
By Wilma McCorkindale
Twenty years’ head of the Dunedin International Airport Board Richard Walls is unlikely to be unfastening his seat belt from the chair any time soon.
{continues}

Post by Elizabeth Kerr

Seen about town

Photos supplied

Post by Elizabeth Kerr

All aboard the March Commuter Train

Thanks to @TinoPai for tweet link.

GET THE TRAIN

The rail transport advocate group ‘Get the Train’ is planning another one-day-only Waitati-Dunedin-Waitati commuter train service during Walk 2 Work Week next month, on March 10.

The service would be operated by Taieri Gorge Railway with the help of Dunedin City Council.

Find out more

Post by Elizabeth Kerr

Owing $45.5 million in private sector funding

The Star community newspaper carried an update on private sector funding and sponsorship in early February.

### ODT Online Tue, 16 Feb 2010
Stadium funding passes $30 million
By David Loughrey
Private sector funding for the Forsyth Barr Stadium has passed $30 million, with sponsorship packages and seating sales pushing funding to two-thirds of the total required.
Read more

Related post:
5.2.10 Commercial manager Guy Hedderwick on stadium sponsorship

Post by Elizabeth Kerr

$2.4 million ask for DVML becomes clearer

### ODT Online Mon, 15 Feb 2010
Company now employs staff of stadium trust
By David Loughrey
The company set up to run the Forsyth Barr Stadium and other Dunedin City Council-owned venues has taken over as employer all staff who have in the past been employed by the Carisbrook Stadium Trust.
Read more

Post by Elizabeth Kerr

Some debilitating news…

### ODT Online Sat, 13 Feb 2010
Most councillors will stand again
By David Loughrey and Chris Morris
The contestants are emerging before October’s local body elections, with most Dunedin city councillors yesterday confirming plans to stand again.
Read more

Post by Elizabeth Kerr