This is the kind of City Council we have.
This is the kind of company the City Council owns.
This is the kind of stadium the City Council has, running at a crippling loss.
These are the kind of losers running this city, deciding your ratepaying destiny care of the selfish pricks that administer Professional Rugby.
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30.3.12 ODT: Stadium report release date deferred again
A report on the financial position of the Dunedin company running Forsyth Barr Stadium is being held for another month, with little explanation yesterday of why. It means the public will have to wait longer for possible insight about whether the stadium will pay for itself, or end up an annual drain on city finances.
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WHAT KIND OF MOOD ARE WE IN
There’s never a good time for trying to fool the public.
Not around the LTP and Annual Plan process.
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
What if? Dunedin... 
Two temporary positions with the DCC: applications are invited from consultant astrologers and feng shui specialists. Your mission will be to arrive at “most suitable time and forum” for releasing DVML six-monthly report.
No pressure…..
Fri, 30/03/2012 – 9:55pm. Rob Hamlin Political convenience
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/203461/stadium-report-release-date-deferred-again#comment-28927
I presume that by this they mean politically convenient time. My reading of the DCC’s plan document is it relies on an assumption that DVML will break even. {continues}
When is the next OPEN council meeting (I know that’s a joke) I am so sick of these gutless POS hiding. Is there a backbone between the lot of them?
Why does everyone keep beating around the bush? These so and so’s need called out.
In fact, why can’t we call them out right here.
We the public, the ratepayers want an open meeting where the council actually ANSWER our questions. NO HIDING BEHIND YET MORE CLOSED DOORS. It’s time you man’d up. Or is that a bit scary and a bit much for you??????????? Too much to hide maybe??????????????
“Politically convenient” means until we have forgotten about the connection between who on council voted for the debt (Hudson and mates) and the debt the city is in. When that happens Hudson and mates will start making noises about how the silly people of Dunedin did so want their stadium, so they are the ones to blame for the debt. Do you think the Otago Rugby Times will challenge Hudson, Brown and Bezett once this becomes their story? As likely as them writing a non happy story about the stadium or stadium stakeholders.
Terry Wilson’s letter to D Scene 4.4.12 (page 8) regarding DCC’s non release of the DVL and DVML six monthly reports doesn’t get a reply from Mayor Cull. Terry says this non disclosure invalidates the LTP. He is correct. Cull can’t hide on this one.
Oh yes he can. There’s a precedent, celebrated in song back when people had to do their own singing and guitar-playing. “We’re off to see the Wild West Show” went the chorus. Don’t you remember the Amazing, Astonishing Oohjah Bird which disappeared up its own fundamental orifice?
And there will be a Ferntree full of worthies prepared to swear on a stack of billfolds that they haven’t seen him, know nothing, heard nothing.
Further, Mr Cull weakly refutes (from the orifice) the claim of D Scene editor Mike Houlahan regarding the number of council reports heard in non public… worth a read, as is Mike’s reply.
The ‘Oohjah’ bird is a close relation to the ‘Mot-mot’ bird, an icon of the law and accounting societies. It is renowned for ever flying backwards looking at last year’s figures, calling ‘what what what’
When I saw ‘There’s a precedent, celebrated in song back when people had to do their own singing and guitar-playing. “We’re off to see….”‘ I expected it to be ‘……..the wizard, the wonderful….’ Because he’s about the only one that could fix this.
### ODT Online Wed, 11 Apr 2012
Stadium review results ‘to be public next month’
By Chris Morris
Results of an independent review examining the final cost of the Forsyth Barr Stadium will be scrutinised in public next month, Dunedin City Council chief executive Paul Orders says. […] Mr Orders yesterday told the Otago Daily Times the review team was “almost done” and expected to finish its work next week, then present findings to him. Mr Orders would then compile a report on the review’s findings to be presented to the next full council meeting on May 14, where it would be debated in public.
Read more
Why not just release the findings publicly?
No one cares about how he presents it, we want to see the facts.
“A report on the review’s findings”? That’s the kind of thing that fires my rat-smelling neurons. Emphasis by placing, omission of “unimportant details”, selective precis….
If it looks like a rat, smells like a rat, sounds like a rat and acts like a rat then it is probably the Stadium Councillors scuttling about at the Dunedin City Council hoping voters do not notice them (no offence intended to actual rats).
There was an interesting wee story buried in the Otago Daily Times today, which doesn’t appear to be available online. Ratepayers of the town concerned in the national story were taken for an extra $9.5M in rates above what the council was entitled to.
That town is now rallying together to take legal action against the council. The council’s only form of recourse apparently is to seek an exception from government. Has someone got a print copy handy for more information? It’s nearer the back. I think it would be worth following.
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{See earlier post https://dunedinstadium.wordpress.com/2012/02/21/kaipara-this-time/ -Eds}
This must be what you are talking about Anonymous http://www.northernadvocate.co.nz/news/complaint-looms-over-kdc/1333814/
‘Kaipara ratepayers have laid a complaint with Wellsford police and the Serious Fraud Office over $9.5million the Kaipara District Council has admitted mc incorrectly collected.’
‘…Councillors were now concocting “the mother of all long-term plans intended to recover all the monies lost through their own incompetence and illegalities…”‘ Sounds like our council doesn’t it?
Thank you Amanda. The following sounds all too familiar as well.
‘Auditor-General Lyn Provost will carry out an inquiry … including scrutiny of the way the Audit Office had for several years approved council activities that were outside the law.’
Rubber stamping has played its part in the stadium rort and allowed the systemic corruption in Dunedin City Council to grow unhindered.
It is interesting to note the ODT has not published its print story online.
From that Northern Advocate article “The complaint follows a request last week for the council to return the money, which it declined to do, claiming cash taken through invalid rates did not raise issues of criminal law.
But retired lawyer Clive Boonham, who will file the complaint on behalf of himself and other Mangawhai ratepayers, told the Northern Advocate the Crimes Act covered “theft pursuant to a mistake” which, he said, might include situations such as the KDC’s rates and the recent case of a bank accidentally putting $10 million in a customer’s account.” When the couple took off with their $10M windfall there was no sign of a “Fair enough, good luck to them” attitude.
I don’t think “accidentally” overcharging is OK in law, is it?
Are the six monthly account results of DVML which this council thinks it has a right to not release able to be requested under the information Act?
john – you can make an official information request for this information, DVML is a council-owned company. It’s possible a request(s) has been made by others, check with Sandy Graham at DCC. However, the council intends to release the documents on 26 April 2012 – this was announced at the public meeting held at Burns Hall on 12 April, hosted by the Dunedin Ratepayers and Householders Association.
https://dunedinstadium.wordpress.com/2012/04/09/public-meeting-dcc-draft-annual-plan-201213/#comment-23071
You can make OIA and LGOIMA requests through http://fyi.org.nz/
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{Useful page: http://fyi.org.nz/help/about#about-the-oia-and-lgoima -Eds}
Thank for the information Elizabeth & Mike
Look forward to reading it on the 26th April
Thanks John