PROPOSAL — TAIERI AQUATIC COMPLEX, AND GYMNASIUM
Cr Mike Lord supports added gymnasium (not costed)
NOT ENOUGH MONEY OR PEOPLE IN MOSGIEL CATCHMENT TO HOLD UP PROPOSAL INITIATED BY HOUSING DEVELOPERS, HIGHER PERFORMANCE SPORT/RUGBY AND MOSGIEL BUSINESS
NOW CALL GOES OUT TO DUNEDIN RATEPAYERS….
ODT 11.4.15 (page 30) —TCFT advert, bidding on DCC LTP
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Dunedin City Council estimates the pool will cost $18.2 million, with an ongoing yearly shortfall of $2.3 million to run a four-pool complex.
### ODT Online Sun, 12 Apr 2015
Call to support new pool
By Timothy Brown
The Taieri Communities Facilities Trust hopes the wider Dunedin community will support its push for a new aquatics centre in Mosgiel. The trust hopes Dunedin residents will join with the Taieri and make submissions in favour of the $15 million pool during consultation on the Dunedin City Council’s draft long-term plan. The project is included for consultation as an unfunded item.
Read more
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Related Posts and Comments:
1.4.15 ‘Pooling Together’ (TCFT) loses chairman, resigns [see Wanaka pool]
20.3.15 DESTROYED, beautification project —Railway corridor, Gladstone Road
11.3.15 Mosgiel pool trust PLAINLY hasn’t got ‘$7.5M community support’
● 6.3.15 Propaganda from trust for Taieri pool project #Mosgiel
● 2.3.15 DCC: Mosgiel Pool private workshop Tuesday (tomorrow) [renders]
● 20.2.15 Taieri Aquatic Centre: 2nd try for SECRET meeting —hosted by Mayor
● 13.2.15 ‘Taieri Aquatic Centre’, email from M. Stedman via B. Feather
● 10.2.15 Dunedin City Councillors invited to Secret Meeting #Mosgiel
11.10.14 New Mosgiel Pool trust declared —(ready to r**t)
23.7.14 Mosgiel Pool: Taieri Times, ODT…. mmm #mates
16.7.14 Stadium: Exploiting CST model for new Mosgiel Pool #GOBs
● 4.2.14 DCC: Mosgiel Pool, closed-door parallels with stadium project…
30.1.14 DCC broke → More PPPs to line private pockets and stuff ratepayers
20.1.14 DCC Draft Annual Plan 2014/15 [see this comment & ff]
16.11.13 Community board (Mosgiel-Taieri) clandestine meetings
25.1.12 Waipori Fund – inane thinkings from a councillor
19.5.10 DScene – Public libraries, Hillside Workshops, stadium, pools
12.4.10 High-performance training pool at stadium?
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
What if? Dunedin... 
Can you believe this?
”Now is the submission window where people have their last chance to have their say on the project,” trust spokesman Geoff Woodcock said. ”It’s our last chance to educate the public on the necessity of the pool,” EDUCATE.
I think that this guy is barking. They have hardly got past saying that the defined ‘catchment’ for the pool justifies the pool complex as designed and that the local community will raise half the needed funding and already he is asking for the wider Dunedin Community to stump up the money for this extravagance. Then he starts ranting on about the ‘elderly ghetto dwellers’ bound in Mosgiel because they don’t have a driver’s licence, so this is within reach for them.”
Ask Kate to loan them her bike. She seems to think that is the universal remedy for such situations.
This thing will undoubtedly cost much more than even the council estimates at $18.2 million. Remember the ‘not a penny over $180m’ stadium. Dunedin is drowning in debt that a flash swimming pool in Mosgiel will only exacerbate not solve.
It is Mr Woodcock who needs educating. He needs educating on how to deal with our existing debt and how to avoid making it worse. It starts with cutting one’s coat to suit one’s cloth.
Yeah, I love this use of the word ‘educate’. It means “brainwash”.
Yes Dianne – it stuck in my craw too – pure unadulterated hubris. Who the F**# does he think he is? He sure as hell needs a lesson in basic humility. After the last chance – then what? ACHTUNG! VE VILL DO VHAT VE VANT ANYVAY. UNT YOU VILL PAY. FOR YOUR OWN GOOT.
Dunedin City Council Community Meeting (Long Term Plan)
Coronation Hall, Mosgiel – Tuesday, 14 April 2015 at 7pm
$18.2 million for a new pool. Wait till they get the bill from me and my cussies for the water that they will need. It will probably make them downsize to a goldfish bowl.
Hori babe
You are so cruel – but I like it .
There’s a Long Term Plan meeting Mosgiel Tues night. Can’t remember the figure DVML paid Rod Stewart to come here – or did I dream that? Need to know with some certainty so that I don’t commit ‘shot in foot’ on Tues night.
I sourced the figure of $350K for Rod Stewart from a DVML insider last year. There is no way you can be sure of the figure unless you are Terry Davies or the DVML Board. Suggest you do a LGOIMA request or talk to Davies directly.
Related Post: https://dunedinstadium.wordpress.com/2014/09/25/dvml-on-otago-rugby-and-rod/
Oldtimer at ODT Online ends their comment with this:
In the Trust’s submission form being handed out to the public, the Trust makes no mention that there is an option in the LTP for upgrading the existing Mosgiel pool to all year round operation, instead the only option they offer is the dearest.
Elizabeth
Absolutely ‘old timer’. My point exactly about cutting ones coat to suit ones cloth. And if we want something more ‘grand’ then we wait until the funding is there and NOT provided by debt like our so called ‘rockstar economy’. That is largely a debt driven economy – just waiting for the debt collecting vultures to arrive.
Carbon copy of F.U.B.A.R.
Carisbrook upgrade dismissed faster than a flying f**k, the one the stadium promoters didn’t give about cost (ours) – only about profits (Tartans’) and their interest in professional rugby.
Similar to Carisbrook revamp to comply with NZRU’s requirements. Malcolm and the boys did what the Mosgiel Pool Trust are trying to do now. Go for the big extravaganza, sell it as “Not a cent over $188 million and it won’t cost the ratepayers any extra, because if it couldn’t be done out of existing resources then he, Malcolm wouldn’t want a bar of it.” We’ve seen it all in slow motion so watch this thing quietly move through the same agony. Cr Lord is the pusher here, not much different from Michael Guest except he milks cows while Guest milked clients.
Two sourced quotes:
Oxford English Dictionary:
“An intentionally false statement:- ‘they hint rather than tell outright lies’;
‘the whole thing is a pack of lies’
Mosgiel Pool Trust in latest advert:
“The Taieri community is offering to fund 7.5 million of a new four pool complex.”
They should identify and define the Mosgiel Community that is going to provide these funds. Now.
That’s not enough. They say that the Taieri community has offered them this $7.5 million. I suppose that they will trot out the old ‘2,500 messages of support’ line. But was each of these 2,500 messages from a Taieri resident, are they all unique to each individual resident, and above all, was each accompanied by a legally biding pledge of $3,000? If they have neither these, nor the big sums in legal pledges from their identified members of fantasy population of 100 wealthy donors described in the unsupported wish list of Appendix E, then nobody has offered them anything. The ‘Taieri Comunity’ has also not ‘offered’ to pay for this facility by (yet another) special rate.
However, if you keep repeating a line consistently, people will eventually come to accept it. A quote attributed to Goebbels, but disputed, and he allegedly used the term ‘lie’ not ‘line’. It doesn’t matter – the veracity of this process is well proven by example. It helps if one is assisted in this by exposure of the line via repetitive articles in media and government with cash and credibility to buy adverts in the same publications.
Names and amounts promised. Or is it a rates add-on that the alleged Community has allegedly agreed to (when? where was that meeting?), that stops at the boundary of Mosgiel, or Allanton, Fairfield … where is this community?
Or is it another slurp from the DCC rates bucket a la “not a cent more”, these people’s favourite flavour of effluent?
They tell me that there is to be a firewood sale in Green Street, Mosgiel, soon, when a significant tree gets the chop.
Word on the street is that all money raised from the firewood sales will be donated to the pool trust. Can anyone verify that ?
Community board member, developer, ‘independent’ commissioner, TCFT (pool trust) member, Mosgiel business association member, ‘serious conflicts of interest’ Martin Dillon’s ELM TREE. Presumably.
B words for that gentleman.
Now that the Mosgiel Pool trust is going to the wider Dunedin community for support there would appear to be no need for any ratepayer subsidy for the pool, or any need to have the pool project on the long term plan.
At first it was the Mosgiel community that were to stump up with $7.5 million.
If the pool trust is to use the same multiplier on the wider Dunedin community, that they used on the Mosgiel community to get the figure of $7.5 million, I think that they will find that they will have over $30 million to play with, and can start the building of the new pool straight away.
Of course this all depends on their original claim of the multiplier, that they have these people in Mosgiel who are prepared to hand over this $7.5 million.
Maybe the motto of the pool trust should be.
“Keep off the grass”.
Mosgiel pool trust got caught out last night at the Long Term Plan meeting, by their own lies. Asked who in the community was stumping up with the $7.5 million, that they have claimed to have through their publicity, they didn’t have an answer, because no-one has stumped up with one cent as yet, or made any commitment. They tried everything to divert the questioner away from the embarrassing question that was asked.
Of the approximately 40 who attended the meeting, only about eight showed their support for the pool. The silent majority at the meeting were not happy with the lies that they were expected to swallow.
Mayor Cull put forward a very fair case on how the council would decide this pool issue when council considers the Long Term Plan.
It’s like telling lies, to source public money for your own pet project, has become fair game. We saw it with the stadium, of course. This is what happens when there is no accountability for those who have siphoned off public money, despite the fact that those in the Halls of Power….not alone the public….know about the abuse that has gone on.
This is outright corruption as we all know. Failure to stop it, even if you didn’t carry out the rort, is also a crime because you have become party to the coverup. An accessory.
@Peter
April 15, 2015 at 9:46 am
You say: –
“It’s like telling lies, to source public money for your own pet project, has become fair game ………This is outright corruption as we all know. Failure to stop it, even if you didn’t carry out the rort, is also a crime because you have become party to the coverup. An accessory.”
It’s a well-trodden path developed by Edward Bernays the Austrian-American pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda, referred to as “the father of public relations”. He called this scientific technique of opinion moulding the ‘engineering of consent’. He felt this manipulation was necessary in society, which he regarded as irrational and dangerous as a result of the “herd instinct”.
He said “If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing about it?”
I think Peter, that you have witnessed Bernays’ methods in action at Mosgiel.
The whole documentary ‘The Century of The Self’ is worth watching but one part focuses on Bernays and ‘the engineering of consent’.
RoguePenguinScotland Published on Nov 10, 2014
The Century Of The Self
It can be hard to find links which work and all episodes – banned or suppressed?
The DCC is demonstrating a very clever example of this by giving the group ‘delegated to investigate’ the current Representation Review the label “Independent Panel”. It is just yet another DCC ‘workshop/working party’, carrying out council business outside the transparency requirements of LGOIMA. Such groups may not make decisions and so should only report back to council. However, this group will be making recommendations and IMO claiming to have ‘consulted’ via the survey. Consultation is a statutory function of council and cannot be delegated. So the DCC continues to evade/ignore the law. I will back again at the Public Forum on 28 April challenging this – which I have been doing since before 2004. Maybe some of the new councillors, especially Cr Calvert, with legal training, will get it.
From YouTube:
The Century Of The Self
One of the most Informative Documentaries Banned from YouTube by the BBC.
Century of the Self covers an amazing array of subjects:
Social control through the promotion of consumerism, the 1960s social revolutions and much more.
The full video on YouTube has been pulled countless times by the BBC for copyright infringement.
The full version is on Vimeo.
‘Century of the Self’ Full length documentary: http://vimeo.com/search?q=The+Century+of+the+Self+
See continuing text at YouTube. -Eds
Mick. Bernays seems to have sussed this one out well. The ‘engineering of consent’ makes sense for those who manipulate.
The herd instinct to go along with or ignore the deception, by rationalising it, is strong. The end justifies the means in some minds.
That is why we are so reliant on:
1. Having the best, most ethical people in power who are prepared for the long haul in stemming this corruption and doing something to stop it.
2. Having watchdog citizens who are prepared to do something to expose the corruption and try to stop it.
Eventually the herd can change direction as the tide turns.
Peter You say:-
1. Having the best, most ethical people in power who are prepared for the long haul in stemming this corruption and doing something to stop it.
2. Having watchdog citizens who are prepared to do something to expose the corruption and try to stop it.
Eventually the herd can change direction as the tide turns.
Well Peter, they are few and far between in the halls of the DCC power. In fact I have noticed only one such person there. The rest…..? Can I suggest that they are either the manipulators or have already been captured. The latter are known as ‘makeweights’.
I made an Official Information request about the relationship between the DCC and the Taieri Community Facilities Trust. The following Council Resolution is already in the public domain. The view of the DCC that the notes taken at a non-public meeting should not be public may be worth testing by referral to the Office of the Ombudsmen. A report on this meeting was made back to Community Boards in the area and is in their Minutes apparently. I haven’t yet found any legislation which refers to ‘Council-community partnerships’ and am trying to find out whether this is a purely informal arrangement within the ordinary framework of the Local Govt Act.
Excerpt from the Council’s reply:
At the Annual Plan hearings in 2014 Council passed the following motion which allocated $30K to the Trust to have a feasibility study undertaken.
EXTRACT FROM THE PUBLIC MINUTES OF THE COUNCIL MEETING HELD ON 24 JANUARY 2014
“That subject to consultation through the 2014/15 Annual Plan:
the Council provides funding of $30,000 to a community owned trust to investigate in partnership with the DCC and community, the establishment, ownership and operation of a new Mosgiel Pool facility.
No elected members who attended the Workshop took notes at the meeting. Notes taken by a staff member who attended the meeting are withheld pursuant to sections 7(2)(c) and 7(2)(f) of LGOIMA. These sections enable information to be withheld where information is supplied subject to an obligation of confidence (the meeting was not open to the public) and where withholding information is necessary to maintain the effective conduct of public affairs through the free and frank expression of opinions by or between members, officers or employees in the course of their duty.
As we have withheld some information, you have the right pursuant to section 27(3) of LGOIMA to have our decision reviewed by the Office of the Ombudsman.
(ends)
Personally, I wonder whether the DCC should ‘give away’ $30,000 to the TCF Trust to conduct a feasibility study, or whether the DCC should keep control of the feasibility study themselves. I think the latter would be a more transparent process.
It looks like you have struck a nerve Diane. It would appear that they have something there that they do not want you to know. It maybe worth going to the Ombudsman on this one.
Diane you raise a very good point when you say “whether the DCC should keep control of the feasibility study themselves”.
The question should be: Why did the council hand over $30,000 to a trust to conduct a feasibility study when Mosgiel has an elected community board to do the feasibility study on behalf of the community, and the community board has the services of the council staff to assist them?
Interestingly, the community board is made up of six elected members. The trust has on board at least four present and past community board members. Interestingly, the other two are opposed to the pool, so have been sidelined and treated like mushrooms. Kept in the dark and fed bullshit.
Now I will give you the reason for why the feasibility study is being done by the trust. They do not come under the official information act, and can do as they like when they like and how they like. Just like Sandy referred to above, about the meeting where they were caught out telling lies. Unfortunately they are accountable to no-one, and that is exactly the reason that the trust was formed. I have unfortunately been in the snake pit with some of the board members that now hide behind the trust, and seen how board money has been misappropriated. I have tried to bring this to the notice of Council with no effect. I think they are going to follow along the lines of Citifleet on this one, and wait till someone dies, and put the blame on him/her.
I will go back to my original point. Why did the Council and the board pass the buck on this one, when the board are the elected representatives of the community, that cost the ratepayers about $80,000 annually to do things like feasibility studies for a new pool. It all comes back to accountability. Certain board members want the money but not the accountability.
Brian: I am beginning to suspect that the term ‘community/council partnership’ is too often just weasel words for FORUM SHIFTING. Real ‘community/council partnership’ means a group actually stumping up with actual money and spending it on something of public benefit to which the council contributes. But the vast majority of ‘collective action’ groups are just trying to get money out of the council.
It’s a shame I can’t find a good explanation of ‘forum shifting’ on the internet. If a group can’t get their goal achieved by transparent, inclusive, democratic process, they simply shift the decision-making to non-transparent, non-inclusive, non-democratic forum, for example, a private trust. The DCC has been doing this relentlessly for the last 15 years that I know about (as long as I’ve been in Dunedin) and are either too stupid or too hide-bound or too arrogant to acknowledge that they have ever done anything wrong. (Don’t worry, Diane. No decisions are being made. So these are not meetings of the Council.)
Below is the best explanation of forum shifting I can find on the internet. It is indeed a cat and mouse game, played everywhere and at all levels nowadays to undermine democracy, sadly far too often with great success.
Forum-Shifting & IP Protection, Enforcement – Susan Sell
Probably we are well aware of it by now Diane. Hello Stadium. What we need is The Fix. Ombudsmen’s Office won’t help – they’re under thumb of political budgets, and swamped with complaints, as you’ll be aware. Thus Dame Beverley Wakem’s post-election commission of inquiry now under way. See relevant posts at this website, including New Zealand: Salmond on abuse of democratic freedoms and links supplied there.
By the way, in case I am sounding as if I want to make life unreasonably difficult for the DCC, I don’t. Setting up these working parties/workshops/panels etc as subcommittees is perfectly feasible and makes the council business then carried out under the transparency, inclusiveness and accountability requirements of the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act. All councillors may observe even if they are not members of the subcommittee, so this avoids unfair ‘rule by council clique’ by restricting information to minority councillors.
The public can be excluded from a subcommittee if there are reasonable grounds. So if the DCC has nothing to hide, why don’t they use subcommittees composed only of properly elected representatives to carry out council business? Other parties (such as private trusts and community groups and also individuals) can make submissions to subcommittees. There is absolutely no obstacle to doing council business this way.
I object to a member of a private trust who is not even identified and who I certainly didn’t vote for carrying out council business. Even if the DCC says they are not ‘making decisions’, they are preparing to make them or preparing for them to be made – the way they want.
Cr Calvert made this very point in an opinion piece in ODT – how do voters evaluate the performance of elected reps if the public is excluded from information upon which those elected reps base their eventual decisions?
Pretty simple really Brian. There are votes up for grabs in Mosgiel for Greater Dunedin members plus of course the mayoralty for Dave Cull. Problem is they aren’t known specifically, so better toss some wheat to any and all chooks, that way you are less likely to offend. It’s a populist gambit with little risk and much to gain. After all, it’s not their personal money is it?
I printed out the Power Point presentation which was given to the DCC councillors and other people attending the non-public ‘workshop’ about the proposed Taieri Aquatic Facility. What a waste of paper and ink Power Point is! My visual information guru, Edward Tufte, hates them. They are full of ‘chart junk’ and generally obfuscate rather than enlighten by too crassly simplifying. I would post it here if it wasn’t such a bloated whale of useless text. Actually, I wonder if I could convert it to a Word document and let it speak for itself. Will try. But it the meantime, this presentation has IMO all the hallmarks of Council staff bending over backwards to justify a new expenditure in terms of as many as possible of the Council’s existing Plans for this and that. I remember when the DCC attempted to justify the building of the Stadium along these lines, claiming, amongst other fatuous statements, that the building would promote the earlier stated goal of ‘accessible city’ because State Highway 88 would be re-aligned. Never mind the fact that re-alignment could be done without building a Stadium! The Power Point presentation looks to me just more of the same. However I will try converting it to plain text so people can judge for themselves.
Okay, converted the Power Point slides to a text file and only added minimal numbering and underlining so it’s possible to discern which headings various lines fall under. The discussion will have to be imagined but, if it was based on this Power Point presentation, then it would have been all about how this proposed project complies with and furthers the DCC’s already stated goals and plans, the only likely exception being a responsibility for financial prudence. Most of this seems irrelevant to making the actual decision to spend the money and I can’t see why such a discussion would need to be non-public.
(PP presentation begins below)
Why have a strategic framework?
Communicate the city’s vision and strategic direction
Show the linkages between the vision and the Council’s activities e.g. Aquatic Services
1 Parks and Recreation Strategy
(under development)
Well-connected open spaces
Accessible recreational facilities
Collaborate to provide and protect
2 Social Wellbeing Strategy
Connected people
Vibrant and cohesive communities
Healthy and safe people
Standard of living
Affordable and healthy homes
Transportation Strategy
Safety
Travel choices
Connectivity of centres
Freight
Resilient network
3 Waters Strategic Direction
Meeting water needs
Adaptable supply
Environmental protection
Maintaining service levels
Kaitiakitaka
4 Spatial Plan
High level framework for decision making – not prescriptive
A liveable city
An environmentally sustainable and resilient city
A memorable and distinctive city
A city that enables a prosperous and diverse economy
A vibrant and exciting city
An accessible and connected city
Spatial Plan cont/
Relevant excerpts:
“Compact city with resilient townships”
“Access to …sporting, recreational and leisure activities throughout the city”
“Locate major community and recreation facilities close to existing population centres, within walking distance of residential areas, and along high frequency public transport routes”.
District Plan
Memorial Park site zoning is proposed to change from Residential to Recreation under the 2GP (review of the District Plan)
Resource consent would be required which would likely look at transport issues and amenity issues, but pool generally in keeping with purpose of zone
LTP / Financial Strategy
Balancing ratepayer affordability, levels of service and community needs and aspirations
Rate and debt levels
National Facilities Strategy for Aquatic Sports
Guidance for development of aquatic facilities on national basis commissioned by Sport NZ
Estimates no additional pool space required in Otago before 2030
Suggests minimum of 25m x 20m pool for population of 30,000.
Questions and discussion
So many yummy adjectives!
Scrummy crispy city with free-range hummus. Toe-tapping city. Organic rainbow-hued recycled natural fibre city.
A further warning about Council expenditure claimed to match existing Council ‘strategic directions’ and official plans.
Here’s my 2007 submission to the DCC Draft Annual Plan, where the stadium proposal was matched against the defined “Community Outcomes” and claimed to further them – the biggest bit of bureaucratic ‘creative’ documentation I have seen in a long time. There seems to be considerable risk that the same kind of bad faith evaluation is underway regarding the proposed Taieri Aquatic facility.
Sorry for such a long post but I think it is important to see exactly how such lies and evasions, which result in extremely damaging outcomes, can be manufactured by people paid with ratepayers’ money, usually very well, to do it. Of course, in response to my submission I got a form letter, clearly churned out for everyone opposed, (just about 100% of submissions), -effectively saying that the council knew the risks, had dealt with them with a price-controlled contract and knew what they were doing. Insulting and arrogant.
(Submission begins below – they are all retrievable from the DCC Archives)
Submission to the Dunedin City Council Draft Annual Plan 2007
I oppose Dunedin City Council funding of the proposed Awatea St stadium in this Draft Annual Plan because:
1 The Carisbrook Stadium Trust (which it appears would receive the funding) is not a Council Controlled Organisation and, as a result, its business is not open to public scrutiny.
2 The statement on page 139 of the Annual Draft Plan: “There is an expectation that the stadium once completed will become a publicly- owned asset.” indicates a very serious weakness in the process. The DCC appears to be suggesting a process of making a very large donation of public money to an independent Charitable Trust. The money, if it is to be given at all, should go only to a Council Controlled Organisation.
3 The statements on page 140 of the Draft Plan regarding the impact of the new stadium when set against the Community Outcomes a defined in the 2006/2015 Dunedin City Long Term Plan are either insufficiently supported or else unclear. More specifically:
1) Accessible city:
Building a city cannot possibly make the city more accessible. State Highway 88 can be realigned regardless of whether the stadium is built or not. The proposed location in an area already congested because of the proximity of the university and hospital is likely to make the area north of the central city less accessible.
2) Safe and healthy people:
Building a stadium cannot reasonably be expected to make the residents of Dunedin safer. A stadium built mainly for visiting spectators is not likely to make the people of the city healthier. Large crowds attending sports matches are known to drink afterwards and, often, behave badly which could result in the city being less safe.
3) Culture and learning:
Improving teaching and research facilities at the University of Otago is the university’s responsibility, not the Council’s. It is not clear how the stadium would improve opportunities for learning for the residents of the city as a whole. Nor are there any examples given of what kind of cultural events could be held in the stadium which would benefit the people of the city. The stadium could be unsuitable and/or too big for local or visiting cultural events.
4) Supportive community:
A supportive community is one where people and organizations help one another. The assembling of crowds or a feeling of pride in the city is immaterial to whether the community is supportive or not.
5) Active city:
The provision of a sports venue targeted at visiting spectators does not significantly increase the activeness of the people of the city, who are already well-supplied with opportunities for sport and recreation.
6) Sustainable city and environment:
The claim that building a stadium wold contribute to this outcome is extremely weak. The suggestion that, in case of serious indebtedness, “Dunedin would be more reliant on Central Government for assistance”, implies that such assistance would be available. This would amount to retrospective central government subsidizing of the stadium. It is hard to believe that central government would set such a precedent, as it would merely encourage financial irresponsibility on the part of local bodies. There is significant financial risk to the city in the building of this stadium.
7) Wealthy city:
The hope of economic benefit to the city is the only Community Outcome that could realistically be promoted by the building of a stadium of the size suggested. Its success depends entirely on attracting visitors to Dunedin. There is insufficient evidence included in the Plan to evaluate whether sufficient visitors would be attracted. There is also insufficient evidence to support the contention that the presence of a stadium would attract or retain more tertiary students. The statement included under: ‘Supportive City: “A negative aspect …. will be the possible financial and service impacts that finding the stadium will have on low or fixed income ratepayers,” should have been included under the heading: “Wealthy City”, because the cost of the stadium, particularly if it does not attract the hoped for visitors to the city could be detrimental to this outcome. Instead, it could put a significant and unnecessary financial burden on ratepayers.
Transparency of process
It would also have been helpful to name the Trustees of the Carisbrook Stadium Trust in the Draft Annual Plan and also the banes of the people undertaking the feasibility study.
Amendment to the DCC Long Term Plan
I also oppose the proposed amendment to the Dunedin City Council Long Term Community Plan which relates to the stadium proposal.
Significant Forecasting Assumptions, Uncertainties and Risks
1) Global warming:
In the Draft Plan the following assumption is made: Global warming and/or climate change will not significantly impact on asset management strategies or Council services over the ten-year planning period (page 91). However, economic benefit forecast for the stadium are made on the assumption that the life of the stadium will be 50 years (page 140). It would therefore seem prudent to give some consideration to whether global warming, climate change and associated sea level rise could affect the proposed stadium.
2) Increase in oil costs and scarcity:
A significant assumption implied in the draft Plan, but not stated as such, is that the cost and availability of fuel oil will not change. This assumption (if it is to be made at all), should be made explicit. However, it is reasonable to assume that over the next 50 years, oil will become significantly more expensive and possibly scarce. Fossil fuels presently account for about 65 per cent of New Zealand’s total energy use and the transport sector accounts for about 40 per cent of this. Since any economic benefit to the city from the proposed Stadium would depend on visitors to Dunedin, who would in turn be affect by increased travel costs, some consideration should be given to this matter and made explicit in both the Annual Plan and the Long Term Community Plan.
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█ SITE ADMIN
Diane has access to other websites for posting long comments.
What if? Dunedin doesn’t provide a political electioneering platform and will resist the opportunity henceforth.
As a contractor to the DCC the Mosgiel Pool Trust is subject to the LGOIMA. Bev Butler worked hard to establish this with CST & Farry. I used this established reasoning to extract Appendix E.
Important for all to keep up with the play through this website, media, DCC and other channels…. so individuals aren’t wasting time reinventing the wheel. Thanks for this advice Rob, some may have missed what has been established for trusts acting as agent for DCC. Yes, very much thanks to the diligent ongoing work of outstanding campaigner Bev Butler.
In addition to the blatantly false ‘Taieri community has offered to pay $7.5 million’ claim, there are a number of other very disturbing aspects about the presumably ratepayer funded Mosgiel Pool Trust advert that appears at the top of this page. It is very much more than simply pro-pool, and this group should not for this reason alone be entrusted with a feasibility study. I do not know if the ‘independent report’ that they claim identified Mosgiel as the ideal site is their own. Its authors are not identified, but if it is, then the description of any such report as ‘independent’ is particularly droll. Green Island is in fact a much better location.
I think that the nastiest aspect of this advertisement is the fact that the meeting they are pushing is actually a mainstream DCC LTP consultation meeting. I did not actually realise this until I arrived. I got fooled – Now one wonders how many others did, in both directions? But look at the advert closely. There is absolutely no suggestion that the meeting referred to is not a dedicated pool meeting. ‘Clever’ eh…..or should that be ‘deliberately deceitful? Whatever it was, it certainly did its job. Cull was put under considerable pressure at this meeting.
Feasibility study: fox presents report on chicken coop security.
It should be noted that of the 25 rent a mob that were paid $30 to turn up at the Mosgiel meeting to support the pool. Only 5 turned up.
Was the verbose transatlantic gent at the back one of those? – “All of New Zealand will come to the Mosgiel Pool!”
Unlikely rent-a-mob. I’m guessing contestant in training for the Billy T James yellow towel top comedian award.
Wish I’d been there. I enjoy a good sharp satirist.
Hey! “All of New Zealand will come to the Mosgiel Pool.” That would please the Tourist & Publicity guys in the Town Hall. They’ll be heads down and bums up right now working out the economic benefits to the region. If they use the right multipliers Mosgiel could become the ‘Lourdes’ of the South Pacific. Put that beside our literary fame and Dave will see the best little city in the world happen on his watch.