Received from Bev Butler
Mon, 1 Dec 2014 at 6:48 p.m.
Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2014 15:31:04 +1300
From: Cushla Turner [ODT]
To: Bev Butler
Subject: Re: Letter to editor
Dear Bev,
Thank you for your letter to the editor received recently. The contents have been noted. However, it was not selected for publication.
Kind regards,
Cushla Turner
Editor’s Secretary
Otago Daily Times
______________________________________
On 29/11/2014 2:29 PM, Bev Butler wrote:
[address removed]
Saturday 29 November 2014
Dear Editor
In response to Dennis Dorney’s letter to editor (29.11.14), the editor states: “Saying the stadium was oversold to ratepayers and opposing its building are not the same thing.” True.
The ODT has always supported the stadium.
In fact, the ODT even had a STADIUM EDITORIAL SUPPORT strategy in place long before the final decision for the stadium to proceed. Nick Smith can confirm this.
Yours sincerely
Bev Butler
—
Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
What if? Dunedin... 
Received from Bev Butler
Mon, 8 Dec 2014 at 2:47 p.m.
Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2014 14:43:03 +1300
From: Cushla Turner [ODT]
To: Bev Butler
Subject: Re: letter to editor
Dear Bev,
Thank you for your letter to the editor received recently. The contents have been noted. However, it was not selected for publication.
Kind regards,
Cushla Turner
Editor’s Secretary
Otago Daily Times
____________________________
On 06/12/2014 1:53 PM, Bev wrote:
68 Russell St
Dunedin Central 9016
Dear Editor
In the editorial New Zealand and corruption (ODT 6/12/14), I was interested to read the closing remark: “Back at home, as a nation we can continue to strive for openness and transparency as an example to our neighbours and global allies.”
Maybe the ODT could lead the way and publish the details of the STADIUM EDITORIAL SUPPORT strategy developed by Nick Smith, owner of ODT, and paid for by Dunedin ratepayers.
Yours sincerely
Bev Butler
—
{Link added. -Eds}
“Not selected for publication” – how astonishing, how out of character. (cough-cough)
After reading the ODT editorial today I had to check the date. Is it the 1st April already?
Good Q. I was struck dumb by it and will respond tomorrow when the energy is back !!!
For the record abridged from my response to this travesty was the final lines “… the various CST actors have mostly left town, the rugby crowd still don’t pay their way and wilfully neglect their promises to help pay for the stadium”
The ODT also removed my contention that Farry’s original promise that the stadium would be privately financed “turned out to be far from the truth”. They also removed the adjective “their own stupidity” describing ORFU’s decision to push for a stadium resulting in the value of their one asset crashing to 0.
In other words, Mike, “move right along, don’t relitigate the past.” Not forgetting “we won, you lost, eat our rugby shorts” – and let’s have no more mention about the fact that you lose again every time your rates bill arrives, and every time something you think it necessary/desirable for the city is dropped or half-done because of all the money being shipped offshore as interest on this one massive Fubar.
I’ll be convinced the Fubar Stadium is the success claimed when it turns a profit over [overt and covert] outgoings. On present discoverable evidence that will be 10 working days after hell freezes over.
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/388889/firm-has-3-weeks-pay-carisbrook-31m-debt
Firm has 3 weeks to pay Carisbrook $3.1m debt
The buyers of Carisbrook have three weeks to pay the Dunedin City Council for the former sports ground after an earlier plan to subdivide and develop the site to meet the $3.1million debt did not eventuate……
Yes I found it amazing that Carisbrook still hasn’t been paid for, after all these years, though to be fair the DCC are being paid interest for their ongoing loan.
The ODT feels the need to come up with this ra ra bullshit after a big footy game at the stadium…..which happens so infrequently…..as we know. Meanwhile the expensive grass grows as well as our rates bill to keep the joint afloat.
Followed today by more so-called good news about a fab home show in November.
All this helps to prime up the stadium to massage the bad news to come. Both financial and the slow drip drip feed of dodgy deals to get the stadium built in the first place. We will never forget ODT no matter how much you try to cover up scandal. The ODT is so irrelevant these days.
Btw. Wasn’t Julian and Terry’s little fun photo today so contrived? I wonder if Brian Meredith of the Marketing Bureau helped out. Or did he screw enough money from the ratepayers first time round?
Sally. Goebbels would have given a big tick to that editorial.