TWO free concerts today @ Dunedin !!!

HAPPY NEWS

### ODT Online Sat, 7 Sep 2013
Two free concerts today
By Nigel Benson
Dunedin music celebrates its own with two free concerts today.
Music promoter Dunedinmusic.com is marking its eighth anniversary with the gift of music.
A free all-ages concert will start at 2pm, followed by a licensed evening show at 7.30pm, both at Refuel bar.

”We’re celebrating the extraordinary musical talent that resides here in Dunedin, and it’s also our way of saying thanks to the many, many people involved in our community.”

The all-ages concert is on from 2pm to 5.30pm and the licensed concert from 7.30pm till 1.30am.
[what sort of music, you ask?] Read more

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Stadium: $266 million, more or less?

Most of the information was already in the public domain, but it was the first time the costs had been collated and presented in one list. Council financial planner Carolyn Howard spent three months, between other projects, collating the material. —ODT

### ODT Online Sat, 7 Sep 2013
New figures raise stadium costs
By Chris Morris
New financial figures have pumped up the price of Dunedin’s Forsyth Barr Stadium to as high as $266 million. The Dunedin City Council hopes the disclosure will help draw a line under the project and put an end to years of acrimony and finger-pointing. The list released yesterday detailed $42 million in spending on projects considered fully or partially stadium-related, from the State Highway 88 realignment to the bail-out of the Otago Rugby Football Union. However, council chief executive Paul Orders told the Otago Daily Times the public would have to decide what was fair to include in the final stadium bill.
Read more

Stadium-related extras (via ODT)
External advice $2.1m
DVML setup costs $3.4m
Carisbrook deal $3.4m
ORFU loan (nominal cost) $700,000
State Highway 88 $27.2m*
Surplus land $1.7m
Local roads (lost assets) $3.5m
TOTAL: $42m

PWC’s stadium cost: $224.4m

If all extras included: $266.4m

*NZTA ⅔ subsidy

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Image: populous.com – Otago stadium (re-imaged by whatifdunedin)

you may call me God

Hello, God here!

no What If hasn’t been hacked by some higher power and no I’m not drunk or anything, but it’s about time we set some things straight at what-if, because for all intents and purposes I am god here.

You may remember I started this blog to encourage debate about the design, architecture and ‘other’ aspects of what was to become Forsyth Barr Stadium.  This was fine and dandy & almost no one visited the site.  Then the STS imploded and I invited Elizabeth Kerr onto this site as a he said/she said two opposing views of the stadium development.

Things of course took off, and there was some robust debate.  However pretty bloody quickly I got sick of the emails threatening me with legal action over comments on this site.  These were followed by abusive phone calls – yes screaming down the phone to me is abuse, legal phone calls and finally legal documents, all because you bloody fools can’t help yourselves.

You come onto this site, making the most pathetic, outlandish and more often than not slanderous comments, and who’s the bloody mug that has to deal with it all – me!

What’s really bloody disappointing and ultimately annoying is, in among the tin-foil-hat-conspiracy-theory shite that is espoused in the comments section, are some gems of information that worthy of debate and ultimately good for the city.

I am sick and fucking tired of getting legal documents and emails, asking me to remove or edit comments on this site.  You will all appreciate I more or less give you all free reign to say whatever it is that you have on your chests.  

I can tell you now that although I disagree with roughly about 110% of the crap that you all say here, I let it go, because of the weight of the forum as a focus for robust debate on the built, economic and political environment of Dunedin.

But my patience rightly so is about to run out. I DO NOT need to come to ChCh to deal with a terminally ill cancer friend only to have to consider your fucking insulting and slanderous comments.

Let this be a notice to you all. I WILL NOT tolerate any more Slander, conspiracy theories, cheap personal insults bordering on slander, cheap nasty generalisations bordering on slander, or any stupidity that results in me getting calls or legal letters threatening me with legal action.  Quite simply I will close the site down.  I will archive it and hand it to the Hocken as a record of document around a time and place in Dunedin.

You are of course more than welcome to go to WordPress.com and sign up for a free wordpress blog and start your own site, calling people whatever names you care to, I could suggest some names for this site for you…

but I’d be at risk of breaking my own rules above.

 

FYI, things off limits from now on are:

personal attacks on members of the public (including elected officials) with even the slightest hit on slander or liable,

Any references to Climate Change or ‘Eco Nazi’s’. Those wishing to deny climate change are more than welcome to visit theworldisflatandiknowbest.wordpress.com,

Any so called ‘fact’s & figure’s that you simply decide to pull out of thin air.  There’s nothing I love more than being ridiculed by the accounting/business community when they ask why I allow voodoo maths & economics to stand as fact,

Academic freedom and the right of academics to do their work without slanderous and libellous attacks.  Countries that you and I wouldn’t care for one minute to live in have greater respect for Academic freedom than some of you folk on this site,

And at the risk of being a self righteous prick who contradicts all of my rules above, I couldn’t give a flying F…

This site used to be visited by thousands of people daily/weekly looking to get tasty morsels and robust debate.  It’s slowly eroded into a festering pit of ridicule and shame. 

This site is not ‘public’ property, and it is certainly NOT your playground to espouse any and all comments which time and time again put me in hot water!  Because I know for a fact, that hiding behind your pseudonyms, you are not the ones fielding phone calls from lawyers or replying to their emails – no that would be me – bloody muggins.

You have been warned and yes you may call me god.

—

Posted by Paul Le Comte