DANGER | WARNING SIGNS | DESPAIR
CORRUPTION PET PROJECTS MORE DEBT HIGHER RATES SAME AGAIN
yay
### dunedintv.co.nz January 14, 2015 – 5:41pm
DCC prepares to launch into draft long term plan
The Dunedin City Council is preparing to launch into its draft 2015/2016 long term plan. Councillors will begin formal discussion of the document next week.
The long term plan outlines the council’s financial strategy for the next ten years. It takes into consideration major changes and development, in respect of infrastructure, assets, services and economic development.
The plan also highlights how the council intends to fund work, with information about budgets, financial sources and changes to rates. A final version will be prepared after public consultation, which will begin in mid-March.
Ch39 Link [no video available]
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
What if? Dunedin... 
Please stop repeating the proof-reading error. It’s DAFT long term plan, which may contain non-daft elements. The mis-spelled version suggests it’s the other way around and is therefore, whether intentionally or accidentally, misleading.
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{The error is regretted. -Eds}
The plan highlights how the council intends to fund works. It’ll be ‘dat’ ‘det’ again as always. Proof read that would you please Hype.
You’re going the G B Shaw fonetik speling way now ar yu, Calvin?
The draft long term plan is not daft. It is constructed by highly intelligent well informed (within the bounds of their interest) people who know exactly what they are doing. I suspect that they are also happy for it to be described as daft, because those thoroughly dispensable individuals who are publicly associated with the discussion and authorisation of said daft plan, and who are actually described as daft, are not actually those who actually contributed to and (truly) authorised said draft (daft) long term plan.
Having a figurehead who is thought of as daft when one is actually intelligently pursuing an alternative and highly self-interested agenda can be very advantageous – Just look at Ronald Reagan’s numerous ‘éminence grises’, and the outcomes that they achieved.
This week at ODT somebody had an opinion piece published taking a look at anti-terrorism measures at stadiums.
I gave it the merest glance only. Aside from the (sirens!!) ‘anti-terrorism’ headline and opening paragraph (an immediate turn off, it wasn’t the satire of Roy Colbert or Jim Sullivan for the pleasure), what caught my attention were tiny photographs supplied by ODT, of two Dunedin sites — the Octagon and fubar stadium. Accompanied by small print, saying “soft targets?” **hoot**
OMG
Fabulously, anyone aiming to blow up the bunker stadium would be doing ratepayers an extreme favour. So long as the complex wasn’t packed at the time, we could well accept chards of concrete and make new sculpture out of bent steel – aah but that’s not how terrorists work, and where would a foreign envoy of scurrilous pedigree and disinhibited psychopathic intent find a kiwi suicide bomber or seagull aged 10 and female to launch Dunedin to Centre World Stage, suddenly.
These testing scenarios are precisely the sort that Farry of Saint Clair deliberately designed to omit as REAL COSTS from the Stadium’s GMP contract.
Unbelievably — although believably if you keep up with World News (because you refuse to read ODT and prefer other broadcast and print media as well as the Web) — one Dunedin man chose to mention anti-terrorism in his submissions to the Dunedin City Council’s Plan Change 8 – Stadium. Rightly, on this point it seems, due to current history, he was thinking ahead. For those who know him, demonstrably, he has the intelligence and track record to think laterally and identify these and other ‘community’ safety issues.
ODT reporter David Loughrey on summing up another day of oral submissions to the plan change hearings, said: (my emphasis)
Given everything, ODT might want to delete the words UNUSUAL ARGUMENT, or at least tell the codger offering opinion this week that he has been well and truly gazumped by Otago’s Brian Miller — in 2008.
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Further, when a DVML MANAGER brings a loaded firearm to the stadium and loses it on site, as happened in 2014 [see Stadium: Behaviours at Suite 29 (intrepid tales)], and it’s not counted by the acting DVML chief executive, co-managers and staff, or the DVML Board, as a police matter and a criminal act —heck, who needs SECURITY anyway, much less anti-terrorism measures.
“Farry Will Save Us” are how present budget lines read for the Stadium.
[And you thought you only had to pay for deferred and cyclical building maintenance, attraction funds, RUGBY payments, and a new unworkable acoustic system.]
What of the Octagon?
It must be said, a spring clean by Al Qaeda is unlikely to please the councillors and council staff FOR the “Central City Project“.
█ Look for new lines in the DCC Daft Long Term Plan to subsidise anti-terrorism measures at ratepayer expense.
The terrorists we had – Rainbow Warrior, remember? Mr Pereira was killed by the French terrorists – ambled around NZ by car unhindered. Any new terrorists could do the same, once they had got into the country. And if a terrorist act were to be undertaken by a New Zealander who had turned psycho / religious fanatic / generally pissed off to an extreme extent, we’d be as helpless as ever – just like every other country not in the throes of rebellion, where local mad-bad-sad people do most of the mass murders. Given a choice between being killed by a terrorist or by a local nutter… toss a coin.
Enough terrorists on Dunedin roads to satisfy the urge for obliteration, at each intersection. Don’t mention the Southern Motorway.
It is considered that the Council’s Draft Financial Strategy is highly controversial, and that its passage “by discussion and debate” through the Audit and Risk Committee was strongly curtailed by the chairman, Susie Johnstone [profile].
Ms Johnstone in all her splendour is also DCC’s [independent???!!] “go to” for whistleblowers. Hardly independent if she’s politicised in the governance role at Audit and Risk.
Conduct-wise, Ms Johnstone needs to be dropped immediately from all DCC business affairs.
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See Agenda items 3. and 6. in regards to the DCC 2015/15 Draft Long Term Plan (LTP)
Meetings of the Dunedin City Council
Wednesday 21 January, Thursday 22 January and Friday 23 January 2015
Commencing at 9.00 AM
Council Chamber, Municipal Chambers
Agenda – Council – 21/01/2015 (PDF, 89.4 KB)
Report – Council – 21/01/2015 (PDF, 57.1 KB)
Decision Sheet [Review of 2015/16 -2024/25 long Term Plan Estimates]
Report – Council – 21/01/2015 (PDF, 151.7 KB)
Options for Growing Art Gallery Art Acquisition Funding
Report – Council – 21/01/2015 (PDF, 334.3 KB)
Aquatic Facilities Issues in Mosgiel: Review of Taieri Community Facilities Trust Feasibility Study
Report – Council – 21/01/2015 (PDF, 183.0 KB)
Development Contributions Policy – Schedules of Charges
Report – Council – 21/01/2015 (PDF, 227.5 KB)
Block Offer 2015 Submission
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### ODT Online Sat, 17 Jan 2015
Balancing DCC budget tricky task
By Chris Morris
The Dunedin City Council faces one of its most difficult budget balancing acts yet, as it juggles an $8 million hole in its books and the need to keep investing in the city, Mayor Dave Cull says. Councillors will next week begin scrutinising the council’s latest long-term plan, which charts the city’s future for the next decade. The pre-draft document – which is yet to be refined or considered by the public – forecasts a rates rise of 3.7% for 2015-16, followed by 5.5% and 4.2% in the following two years.
Read more
More tomorrow from ODT via weblinks to news stories on proposed Mayoral, Council CEO and STAFF pet project spends and LOTS of INCREASED service charges, supposedly hiding rates increases over 3% (Tui), for the delight of Dunedin ratepayers and residents. It’s entirely predictable and, crassly, all about how DCC borrows beyond conservative and or prudential limits. Ms Bidrose knows all about that from her time of learning at Waitakere City Council (and you wonder about the ‘handiness’ of development contributions et al, as previously discussed at this website in reference to Whaleoil). It’s the ghost of Harland stalking the local authority. Nothing changes as DCC gambles with your private assets.
ODT items on the DCC’s Draft 2015/2016 Long Term Plan (LTP):
█ Pool advocates await council study
Supporters of an aquatic centre for Mosgiel are waiting with bated breath for the release of a Dunedin City Council report. Council staff are analysing the feasibility of the proposed aquatic centre, and the report may determine whether the council decides to support it. [see post Did the pool trust reply, Dr Hamlin?]
█ Funding blow for cycleway plans
How to fund more cycle lanes in Dunedin will be hotly debated at next week’s pre-draft long-term plan deliberations, after the New Zealand Transport Agency reduced its contribution to the project. [see latest post DCC: Chairman denies true and correct Council record or enter *cycle* in the search box at right for related posts]
█ Push for amenities in town
Work to improve Dunedin’s central city area might be back on the agenda as councillors are asked to commit funding. The move to adopt a plan follows a three-year delay due to budget concerns. What amount, and when, will be discussed by councillors at pre-draft long-term plan deliberations next week.
█ Ratepayer-funded cricket lights
Ratepayers will be asked to reach into their pockets to help secure the future of top-flight international cricket at University Oval. [The last thing Otago Cricket demanded was part removal of the avenue of established trees to the Old Art Gallery at Logan Park; before that they sliced off galleries of the district plan listed Category 1 historic building to expand their empire of entitlement. See post DCC says Logan Park Dr trees to go —pressure from Otago Cricket]
Ratepayers aggrieved over Otago Cricket’s call for more council spending on professional sport – comments at ODT Online topped by this effort from Barnaby:
Cricket funding
Submitted by Barnaby on Sun, 18/01/2015 – 12:14pm.
….The message needs to be, “there isn’t any more money for professional sport”. Quite simply, this is not the ratepayers’ responsibility and to continue these inappropriate handouts encourages such groups to not bother seeking other funding avenues for their follies. Why would they bother seeking a sponsor when they can extract the money directly from ratepayers’ bank accounts through successive gullible mayors and councillors?
Read full comment
Calvin Oaten challenges Bidrose and Cull at ODT Online:
Face the facts
Submitted by Calvin Oaten on Sat, 17/01/2015 – 8:27pm.
“We would be well within our 3% rates rise if it weren’t for the stadium,” says Sue Bidrose.
Of course we would, and also not have over $20 million demand on the budget as well. In fact, if the stadium didn’t exist, then the total debt figure would be $225 million lower. All this of course will never be admitted, because as Dave Cull says: “the city is on a roll”. Rolling where, one might ask? Into the world of spin, like we saw from Mr Davies extolling the $3 million economic benefiting to the city when the stadium hosted the NFL match. No mention of course of the stadium costs to host that match. That would be commercially sensitive. No mention either of the additional $2 million to be annually injected over and above the $11.5m, which is already a vastly understated figure that has been conclusively demonstrated by those who actually do the maths to be in excess of $20m annually.
Continues
At ODT Online today | DCC Draft 2015/2016 Long Term Plan (LTP):
█ South Dunedin library concept advancing
The refurbishment of Dunedin’s City Library could be pushed back while plans for a multimillion-dollar facility in South Dunedin are advanced, it has been suggested. Councillors will next week be asked to endorse the next stage of work towards a new South Dunedin community complex, including a library, to be built from 2017 to 2019. The project could cost the council about $5.2 million to get off the ground, as well as a share of $971,000 in annual operating costs. As a result, a $3.85 million budget to refurbish the City Library, originally pencilled in for 2019-20, had been spread over two years, to include 2020-21 as well.
█ Fluoride maybe in pipeline
The fluoride debate is set to resume in Dunedin when councillors consider a potential bill of up to $3.2 million to add the chemical to untreated water reservoirs across the city. At present, 85% of the city’s drinking water was treated with fluoride, but reservoirs supplying properties in Mosgiel, Port Chalmers, Waikouaiti, Outram and West Taieri were not.
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Note:
LONG TERM PLAN PROCESS
A report from the Corporate Planner (Jane Nevill) provided an outline of the 2015/16 – 2024/25 Long Term Plan (LTP) process. […] Dunedin City Council has planned the LTP development and consultation to take place over a 15 month planning cycle which started in April 2014 and ensured that the Council had an LTP adopted by the legislatively mandated date of 1 July 2015.
Secondary Source: (Item 7) http://www.dunedin.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/479769/ma_audit_m_2014_10_07.pdf
Note:
LONG TERM PLAN PROCESS
A report from the Corporate Planner (Jane Nevill) provided an outline of the 2015/16 – 2024/25 Long Term Plan (LTP) process. […] Dunedin City Council has planned the LTP development and consultation to take place over a 15 month planning cycle which started in April 2014 and ensured that the Council had an LTP adopted by the legislatively mandated date of 1 July 2015.
Secondary Source: (Item 7) http://www.dunedin.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/479769/ma_audit_m_2014_10_07.pdf
### dunedintv.co.nz January 19, 2015 – 5:52pm
Forecast rates rise expected to draw substantial public feedback
The Dunedin City Council is about to start considering its long term plan, which lays out the city’s future for the next 10 years. A forecast rates rise for the coming year, in part because of extra stadium costs, is expected to draw substantial public feedback. But the council’s chief executive is quick to point out it’s a “business as usual” plan, with no surprises.
Video
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### dunedintv.co.nz January 19, 2015 – 5:49pm
City lights destined for makeover
The Dunedin City Council is investing in new technology for its street and traffic lights.
Video
This will make everyone sleep soundly tonight, not.
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### dunedintv.co.nz February 10, 2015 – 5:51pm
DCC approves spending for new cycle network projects
The Dunedin City Council has approved a round of spending for new cycle network projects. Councillors support the allocation of more than half a million dollars, granted by the government. And it’s just the beginning of what promises to be a substantial improvement for local cyclists.
Video
DCC Media Release 30.1.15 – http://www.dunedin.govt.nz/your-council/latest-news/january-2015/new-government-funding-for-dunedin-cycleways
Dunedin City Council Published on Feb 12, 2015
Dunedin City Council – Council Meeting – January 21 2015 – Part 1
Coverage of the Dunedin City Council Meeting held on Wednesday Jan 21 2015
Minutes, agendas and reports related to this meeting can be found at http://goo.gl/SWSysl
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█ Note chief executive Sue Bidrose’s memorandum of introduction for the Council’s consideration of pre-draft Long Term Plan items, including meeting requirements of legislative change.
There follows discussion between Cr Lee Vandervis and Sue Bidrose on the cost of staff bureaucracy:
– DCC staff salary costs $45M per annum. Wage rise.
– Staff levels are 7.5% lower than the period where capital build projects were under way (stadium, town hall, settlers museum etc).
– Currently there are 645-650 FTEs (staff).
Then the Mayor’s introduction to LTP considerations: In his opinion, the LTP ten-year timeframe allows opportunities, and smoothing…. for example, enhanced DCHL dividend payments in second half of the ten-year plan – in relation to, say, a longer timeline for repayment of the stadium debt.
Further to loose DCC staff stats in my last comment, from an exchange between Sue Bidrose and Lee Vandervis, these positions are advertised in Sunday Star-Times (Career Market, page D22). Let’s grow them ‘extra’ 10,000 jobs at Dunedin, in-house [economic development strategy].
{Relocated from another thread – relevance: DCC fees and service charges. -Eds}
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Lyndon Weggery
Submitted on 2015/03/02 at 11:26 am
Calvin
– You mentioned tip fees. But no longer for garden waste, because the nice lady at Burnside only charges me between $2-5 for a bootload of green waste. That’s right no more than $5 cash. And you wonder why residents are not flocking to Green Island for their greenwaste disposal anymore? It’s as quiet as George St on a Sunday morning!!! Why pay a minimum of $9 when you can be charged $2? Despite my asking the DCC fails to justify the enormous difference.
Lyndon, if you are looking for any rationality regarding fees and charges from the DCC then you are groping in the dark. The fact is the city is so mired in debt and with the present mayor and council finding it impossible to put the cheque book in the drawer then what do you expect?
I agree, Calvin and just for your interest, dropped off some more greenwaste at Burnside and was pleased to be only charged $2 for a Ford Falcon bootload. The guy next me had a trailorload and had been charged only $20 as against being stung previously at Green Island for $45. The lady at the booth told me she had just charged a man with 4 phlanges (large woolsacks) $5 for the lot as compared to been stung previously at Green Island for $35. Like you, Calvin, I believe it is a disgrace to charge this much except you are subsidising something else like the Stadium debt. Otherwise under normal commercial practice the DCC charges for greenwaste in comparison with a similar operation being supplied at Burnside can simply not be justified.
Good news for local athletes.
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### dunedintv.co.nz March 2, 2015 – 5:50pm
Caledonian running track to be replaced
The Caledonian running track is being replaced, at a cost of almost half a million dollars.
Video + more information