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OFF THE BACK OF A TRUCK | RECEIVING | POSSESSION
This story finally broke and not without its share of cover-up still in place. TVs for the boys. Ratepayers paid. Woops, no papertrail.
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### ODT Online Thu, 3 Apr 2014
DVML defends TV sales to staff, board
By Chris Morris
A decision to sell surplus televisions at Forsyth Barr Stadium to the venue’s staff and board members is being defended by Dunedin Venues Management Ltd. The company, responding to Otago Daily Times questions, confirmed it sold 18 of the stadium’s older screens to DVML staff, board member Peter Stubbs and board chairman Sir John Hansen.
Read more
█ Stay tuned. More to come from deep inside DVML.
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Comment received from Rob Hamlin
Submitted on 2014/04/03 at 10:03 am
Posted today on McPravda’s comments in response to the latest DVML larrikin as reported in McPravda ….TVs this time. As I feel that its appearance there is unlikely, here it is:
“There is but one auction house in Dunedin, and I check its general goods auctions every week, and have done so for decades. As far as I know their nearest competitor is in Alexandra. I recall their sales of Carisbrook surplus items well.
I do not recall seeing bulk lots of high quality 26″-40″+ sized TVs offered for sale at this venue in the recent past. Or even individual ones that match this description. They usually have a good record of getting rid of stuff if the price is right and it looks like at $380 the price that they were prepared to accept was right – for SJH et al at least.
I do not doubt that the consignment records that would confirm their purported attempts to sell these items by public auction have also gone missing…..? Anyway, there’s always Trade Me – although how glass-fronted TVs that hang on the wall above head height get ‘badly scratched’ on a routine basis eludes me.”
Anyway one would have thought that ‘badly scratched’ second hand TVs were more of a student market – wouldn’t one?
It’s also odd that the DVML board appears to have had a precise knowledge of the availability of the company’s surplus TVs on the second-hand market, while at the same time being (apparently) completely ignorant of their previous CEO’s more-or-less concurrent availability on the same surplus/second-hand market!”
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Received from Anonymous
Thursday, 3 April 2014 10:30 a.m.
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Comment received from Russell Garbutt
Submitted on 2014/04/03 at 11:09 am
This is yet another shameful episode in the long history of the stadium and everything that flows from it. The sense of entitlement by those in power is probably not surprising, but unless those that are sucking voraciously on the teats of the public purse for their own nourishment are dealt to, then nothing will change.
I don’t believe for an instant any of the PR crap that has come from DVML in recent or past days and this includes this nonsense of finding TV sets are incompatible to the system now installed at the Foobar.
The Cisco system does use touch screens for some things, but for God’s sake, ripping out nearly 100 HD TV sets which would have been high quality models and hocking them off to the affluent Board members etc at rock bottom prices is nothing short of institutionalised incompetence in my view. Where is the DVML asset register? Quite clearly what went on here and it doesn’t take a genius to realise that there will be lots of bum covering going on.
I don’t accept one word about these things being scratched – just crap!!! Hansen should front up and show us pictures of where he has installed his new TV sets, ditto with Stubbs. Might be difficult if he has on-sold….
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Related Posts and Comments:
22.3.14 DVML, ‘Money for jam…..fig jam’ [Guy Hedderwick story]
19.3.14 ORFU: Black-tie dinner, theft or fraud?
17.3.14 ORFU: Black-tie dinner on ratepayers
11.2.14 Stadium: ‘Business case for DVML temporary seating purchase’
20.12 13 DVML: No harassment policy or complaints procedure, really?
3.12.13 DVML issues and rankles [Burden’s reply]
30.11.13 DVML in disarray [see recent comments and historical links]
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
What if? Dunedin... 
Sir John Hansen should be called in for questioning.
This whole screwy ‘self-investigation’ DVML has done – of course, does not bear scrutiny….
The valuations were credible and, if anything, in some cases ”the guys have probably paid too much”, he [Terry Davies) said.
How does Terry Davies know this if the valuations are missing?
Paper trails are so yesterday. This is Dunedin, we do things the gentlemen’s way.
Handshakes, after which the prudent non-stakeholder counts his fingers.
Terry Davies has just missed the start in a very short race. I wonder what his golden handshake negotiated no doubt by the super intelligent legal eagles who have managed to act for the guilty whilst being paid for by the innocent.
On chief executives:
http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-12-02/
MikeStk at ODT Online. He’s right.
Not surprised
Submitted by MikeStk on Thu, 03/04/2014 – 1:31pm.
Of course no one’s surprised are they? At the same time that DVML is crying “poor”, and say they can’t make ends meet and the ratepayers get hit up to pay for the new TVs. Surplus government equipment should of course be sold to the public, to the highest bidder, not passed around to your board. At this point the board appears compromised and should resign and be replaced by a board that cares about the financial well-being of the organisation, and doesn’t see its owners and a never-ending source of money for TVs.
It was an unsettling to read Sir John Hansen purchased one of these televisions from a company that is highly contentious and under significant scrutiny. He is already a wealthy individual and does not need to acquire equipment under these circumstances. He should have advocated for them to benefit a charitable organisation or at least staff. Many are unable to afford this type of luxury or without using hire purchase. The PR alone would have been so much more rewarding when this information went public – think of the American man who caught a signed basketball and then handed it to a child in front of him. I would like to read now that Sir Hansen has thought to gift it to an organisation that would benefit from its use. Hopefully this will inspire his colleagues to review their position on this matter as well.
Anonymous the old chicken bought TWO. Agree there are more deserving cases, however this hardware wasn’t exactly surplus – unless it wasn’t bought for purpose at the stadium… another procurement or invoice fraud? And I’m sure further LGOIMA requests tied to technical opinion on the TV sets’ usability will come to the fore in following days. Sounds to me like documentation has not only been ‘lost’ but also destroyed to get people off the hook of their Crime. Since when is David Davies not economical with the truth – witness the content of his replies to requests for official information. His replacements seem to suffer from the same virus or congenital defect.
Going back to your public good notion though, all I can say is that across the last two years I’ve accompanied too many people in the final stages of life (from very young to senior) and our hospital has frequently only had blank soul-less chipped/marked painted walls to feed despair and pain as life closes… friends and family have to face this too, or bring temporary decorations. Few flatscreen distractions in evidence whether soundless or moving picture optioned – sensory deprevation. Wellbeing, what’s that if you have only a few days left and little resource in the third world wards.
Bloody entitlement and the infernal pig trough at DVML – Hansen needs strung up.
Don’t know where to put this but in today’s ODT, DCC are deemed ‘scaredy-cats’ by MP Michael Woodhouse. Nothing in that, a remark from a greasy bootlicker MP.
But the classic rejoinder from Mayor Dave Cull caught my eye.
“It’s easy for parliamentarians to be irresponsible with ratepayer money because they’re not responsible to the ratepayers. We are.”
That would have to be archived for posterity as the remark of his term. Problem is to know what category: should it be comedy, pathos, trite, blasphemous or just plain vomit bucket?
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{Your comment fits right here and at just about any post on DCC-related topics. Funny that. Cull has a mental deficit in regard to the word ‘responsible’. -Eds}
Apparently, according to ‘What’s in the ODT tomorrow?’ on Channel 39, there is some ‘story’ about two possible concerts being arranged by DVML. I will be surprised if the detail is not sketchy and this is nothing more than an attempt to bring some good DVML news after the shambles embroiling it now.
The ODT will, of course, oblige. Funny how they can make a story about nothing firm, when it suits. Hope I’m wrong on this one.
Peter, Terry Davies is really starting to piss me off with his crap about getting an ‘A grade’ concert to Dunedin every two years.
And as for that old Auckland coot pontificating at the ODT Opinion page today. Not giving him a link or space here.
Hansen has said as much, not long ago, about forgetting about A grade concerts from overseas. I wonder if Terry Davies realises this contradiction with his Board Chairman.
It seems silly to me to raise expectations for them to be only dashed.
Dave Cannan’s wish list for concerts in his column was similarly flawed…..and pointless. What does it achieve? Frustration and disappointment for those who care.
To get such a concert we will have to tell the promoter, and his act, to name their price and we pay it.
Or not, Peter. Dunedin people with discretionary income can take the short trip to Sydney or Melbourne for a great concert, nice meals out and a bit of power shopping. I’d do that any day rather than stick around the Fubar waiting for Davies to trip the light fantastic.
No one takes Michael Woodhouse seriously, Calvin. Voted in by no one. Represents no one. Accountable to no one. He is an unfortunate bi-product of MMP, soon to be caught knitting in parliament following by disappearing altogether before starting his own party. Comic relief.
I disagree, Phil. The Woodlouse is very competent, he did a great job at Mercy Hospital. He knows he is not accountable to the peasantry, which is not the same as being accountable to no one. Efficiently, he makes sure he is a bright and reliable “safe pair of hands” where it counts and is regularly noticed by the people who count. John Key, Bill English, to name but two.
Thin Lizzie Concealing Cream covers disgusting brown marks on noses, giving a flawless complexion. “I’m always confident in front of cameras now, being papped with party hierarchy.” (MW, Otago)
I suppose I rate PG Wodehouse slightly higher than a weevil now, since he has the ability to wind up that twerp Daaave Cull.