How colloquial –
“We’re in the process of re-establishing the strength of the public service ethic and what that means around transparency, honesty and all of that stuff.”
-Sue Bidrose, DCC strategy and development general manager
### ODT Online Mon, 19 Mar 2012
Council centralises PR team at head office
By Chris Morris
The Dunedin City Council has created a new central communications unit with a potential multimillion-dollar budget, and appointed a new manager to head the team, in a drive to sharpen its public image. Former Dunedin-based journalist Graham McKerracher has been appointed as the council’s new communications and marketing manager.
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Related Post and Comments:
17.1.12 DCC living beyond its means [all spending and debt not declared]
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
What if? Dunedin... 
It is hard to see how centralising the control of Council information in a new Communications unit can be more open and transparent.
It is disappointing that this is a priority for Paul Orders, and the Council thinks that its problems are due to poor communications.
I suppose that there is potential for savings in consolidating media buying, but I have no doubt that media who reflect the official line will have an easier time in the negotiations with the new Propaganda chief. The ODT shouldn’t have any problems.
PM Jenny Shipley used to do that. “We haven’t comMUNicated well enough with the public,” she’d say when the fact was we knew exactly what they were up to and we plain old-fashioned didn’t want a bar of it.
Sue Bidrose, answering a letter to the editor by Ronnie Bhogal (April 17, 2012) replies “Historically the DCC and Dunedin residents have regarded the Octagon as the centre of town and an appropriate focal point for staging community events….”
Historically, as opposed to recently, the Exchange was the hub. Princes Street had the important shops – Whitcombe and Tombs when it was a real bookshop; Woolworths when it was the one great cheap “everything” variety shop. And there is a reason the Chief Post Office was where it was. Pre-phone and internet banking, the imposing banks were in that area, and many hotels including the Grand Hotel (now casino) and Wains, and the City which had the first bistro bar. Just up Rattray Street was the Broadway Arcade. Earlier than I remember there had been a live theatre (vaudeville?). Retail include big busy Bartons Butchers on the Stafford St corner, down to the DIC now the Art Gallery. Of the major department stores Arthur Barnetts was rather an outsider, way down George Street. From the Octagon north the shops were smaller and less posh. Gradually business moved south, presumably to be closer to the university since the majority of George Street shops are now travel agents, cafes and takeaways and fashion clothing outlets.
Apparently a group of Dunedin paranormal investigators will be searching for signs of paranormal activity in the Globe Theatre. While at it, they might like to search the Dunedin City Council. Around fifteen spooks are reported to have taken up residence there and although mostly haunting backrooms, one of them is frequently seen dragging a large necklace around while the most sinister apparition has occasionally made itself known in old print media.
Yes indeed. Those following this thread, see new post. The latest dress code at DCC has stirred up the ghoul necklace dragger.
“Less massage”? Does this mean that the days of claiming hookers as “work expenses” on overseas trips are a thing of the past?
”If a person wants to put his hands among 20,000 lights, and take the chance of not getting his fingers fried … it is really not a bright idea.”
See what they did there? I was going to call Spook intervention on that one from the DCC but it’s actually some crafty editing by the Oddity.
Just some light humour.
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/238797/drunk-grinch-tries-steal-dunedins-christmas
### ODT Online Tue, 2 Apr 2013
DCC manager bound for US to study information management
By Chris Morris
Dunedin will soon being taking lessons on local government transparency from the land of the free. Dunedin City Council governance manager Sandy Graham is one of three New Zealand representatives selected for a month-long fellowship in the United States, paid for by the US State Department. Ms Graham said she was ”really excited” to win selection, having been invited to apply as a member of the New Zealand Society of Local Government Managers (SOLGM). She would be joined in the US by local government representatives from China and Thailand, and would divide her time between Washington DC and University Park, in Dallas, Texas. The trip was being organised by the International City Managers Association (ICMA) and would run from April 12 to May 11.
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