THE DEPLORABLE JOKE THAT IS LOCAL BODY GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT AT DUNEDIN
…. wait for the soft audit review by Deloitte [watching paint dry]
…. DON’T meet or respond to the WHISTLEBLOWER in any capacity
…. be on the DEFENSIVE because you’re that Professional
…. DON’T for godsake issue ANY media release to Ratepayers and Residents on HOW TO STAY SAFE given the DANGEROUS and DEGRADED Aurora/Delta network —which can injure or kill.
It is true that whistleblower Richard Healey has contacted the Mayor of Dunedin to offer overview and discussion but the Mayor has NOT responded.
—
### ODT Online Sat, 26 Nov 2016
DCC takes pole risk seriously, CEO says
By Vaughan Elder
The Dunedin City Council has denied being soft on Aurora Energy over the risk to the public caused by rotting poles. The Central Otago District Council (CODC) has been applauded by whistle-blower Richard Healey for asking a series of questions over the danger presented by compromised poles, but he has called on other councils in the region to take a tougher line.
….[DCC chief executive Sue Bidrose] disputed Mr Healey’s suggestion the council was more concerned about its role as owner of Aurora and Delta than health and safety.
Read more
****
The Public absolutely know Delta “is guilty of “spin” and trying to minimise the enormity of the issues it faces over safety and network maintenance”.
### ODT Online Sat, 26 Nov 2016
The questions we asked Delta/Aurora
Aurora Energy and its sister company Delta have had another rough couple of weeks as allegations they have mismanaged Dunedin and Central Otago’s power network continue to mount. The two companies regularly choose not to answer questions posed by the Otago Daily Times. Here are some of those questions, which chief executive Grady Cameron belatedly responded to yesterday.
Read more
ODT —Question 5. What is Delta’s response to the suggestion from two current staff that most people who work in the field support Richard Healey’s stance and think it is a good think (sic) he went public?
Mr Cameron: “The feedback I have received from our people in the field is that they welcome the increased investment being planned for the Aurora Energy network.”
That says it all.
No one on the Aurora/Delta executive or the Boards has -For Years- given a flying toss about YOUR Health and Safety —not while they’ve troughed, not while they’ve supported the DCHL regime to pay DCC unholy dividends.
We know The Guilty, can Name and Vilify Every Last One of Them.
DVL/DVML/DCHL/DCC money pit [cost to Ratepayers +$20M per annum]
—
Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
This post is offered in the public interest.
*Images: channel39.co.nz – dave cull, bw whatifdunedin | espnscrum.com – stadium build, tweaked by whatifdunedin
What if? Dunedin... 
Ms Bidrose “disputed Mr Healey’s suggestion the council was more concerned about its role as owner of Aurora and Delta than health and safety. “With all due respect, Richard Healey hasn’t talked to anybody in this organisation about that.”” ODT Link
That statement has ARROGANCE and DEFENSIVENESS stamped all over it. Would have been less defensive if Sue had said “As far as I’m aware Richard Healey hasn’t been in contact with anybody in this organisation”. It would have been extra nice to have appended that with “but we intend to call him and request a meeting to discuss his concerns” and quite possibility a person worth their half million dollar salary might even include “so we can improve our understanding of this situation further”.
The number of people involved with this council who say they are working in our best interests but go on to act otherwise is frightening. Worse it seems we have another “doctor” who would rather shoot the messenger than investigate the problem.
That sort of position never bodes well when managing other people’s money.
I do love your ability to sum this up.
A couple of thoughts –
Deloitte did Grady Cameron a huge disservice in awarding him the 2014 Young Energy Executive of the Year. It probably had him thinking he was doing an outstanding job when we now know otherwise.
Now that Aurora/Delta has initiated the sudden coincidental ‘Accelerated Pole Replacement Program’ which took the resignation of a senior manager to begin, we also are overdue for an ‘Accelerated Management Replacement Program’ as well.
Ratepayers should not continue to fund the extraordinarily generous salaries for the present crop of managers who have a proven track record of either failing to notice the obvious, or pretending that all is well.
We need capable managers in this company very quickly.
We don’t need to be paying for people who spout the sort of nonsense that comes out in Gary Johnson’s press releases. We don’t need to be paying for contracted PR people to speak for Grady Cameron. Just what has the present ‘Capability and Risk’ executive manager been doing before the whistle got blown? His network is the most dilapidated, chaotic and unsafe one in NZ.
I hope Mr Crombie as head of Dunedin City Holdings can assert the sort of influence that his position demands, and get some new and capable personnel on the job quickly once the Deloitte report has given him several weeks to draw some deep breath.
Ratepayers are being extremely poorly served by both the Aurora/Delta network, and by those overseeing its operations.
Thanks Nick, appreciate all your forthright comments – much helped by irony and pathos.
Unfortunately too, we have seen Mr Crombie in action over Delta’s Noble Yaldhurst [loss-making] JV deal with Noble (!) which culminated in not only a perfectly lousy deal for Dunedin Ratepayers as approved by financially illiterate Dunedin City Councillors on 1 August this year, but also ensuring Mr CEO Cameron was never put before them to answer questions…. on more than one occasion at Council meetings.
I don’t have any faith that Mr Crombie is the honorable gent to fix Aurora/Delta. In his heart of hearts he would probably agree.
And woops, his recent appointment (July 2015) as Associate Commissioner to the country’s Commerce Commission – for a five‑year term – does not seem hopeful, given his crisis at home with Aurora/Delta, which threatens DCHL and DCC to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars (did I say MUCH MORE).
Good people (operationals) at DCC will quietly tell you that Mr Crombie has control of DCC. And they don’t like that.
Graham Crombie being “given” the position of Associate Commissioner to the Commerce Commission is a vote on the incompetence of our ever failing ‘Bureaucracy’. That he cannot effectively control the Delta/Aurora company says it all. When our elected members, and specifically Mayor Dave Cull, are seemingly absent from duty on all of the drama of not only the Aurora infrastructure but also the Yaldhurst property development’s unmitigated disasters then one would have to question the fiscal viability of Dunedin City to be able to survive. Time for an appointed government commission to take control I think, and quickly. Let’s then hope for a different approach to the problems, hopefully righting things in as short a timeframe as can be expected. Not a likely happening I suspect. God help us all.
Received from Douglas Field
Sat, 26 Nov 2016 at 5:36 p.m.
“With all due respect, Richard Healey hasn’t talked to anybody in this organisation about that.”
With all due respect, which isn’t more than would fit on the head of a microbe, had Richard Healey talked to anybody in that organisation… would anybody have listened? Or were they fully occupied sticking fingers in their ears, going “Lalalala-la-lala-LA” and inspecting their own and one another’s navels?
I think they have all found themselves in a cage of their own making and all they can do now is navel gaze or respond aggressively when prodded.
What would be the point of talking to them, if they don’t want to listen. Lee Vandervis put it in front of them, and look how he has been treated. Liar.
I think it is in the public interest and obligatory on the DCC to make a public apology and give warning that many poles in the city and beyond are dangerous and can fall on people and vehicles. If they do not do this soon we should hold them to account and make public announcement to have the Mayor and DCC dismissed by the electors and new elections held.
Raymond, not forgetting all the other dangerous components and facilities in the network. Aurora/Delta can’t afford to replace or upgrade them. This is where DCHL and DCC, including the current level of council consolidated debt, come dramatically unstuck. Everyone deserves to know what the ballpark is and what it will mean for the entire district. Damn those deckchairs.
When I was in the pig industry I worked for a major listed company. That company had to be audited. It was a delightful process, as the major accounting company that had the contract – usually a new one each year – had not a clue what ‘stocktaking’ on a pig unit meant. It meant counting pigs (by the thousand) in their natural habitat. The stocktaking process also involved checking the unique numbers tattooed in each pig’s ear, as some were worth a lot more than others. So every porker had to be caught, restrained, cleaned in the necessary place and ‘audited by the experts’.
So clueless were they that they arrived in pinstriped suits (both sexes) and high heels (women only) to do the job. I can remember seeing one young lady in full business regalia on a concrete floor covered in a layer of slurry. She had caught a fair sized pig by its back trotter, the other three trotters were engaged in ‘full forward thrust’ by their owner. Terminal trotter traction on the slimy concrete had been achieved (she was a big girl) and the laws of action and reaction were applying, so you can guess where all the s**t that was being thrown up was ending up. I laughed and laughed until I cried.
The only happier moment was when one of the suave and casual blokes was sufficiently ill informed to pick up the last feed bag in a stack without kicking it first. The large rat that consequently shot out from underneath it and up his pinstriped sleeve led to a higher energy disco dance than any seen at their Christmas party I’m sure – Happy days! They usually left early, and we counted the stock. The company BMW, or equivalent, that they left in must have represented quite a resale problem for the fleet manager!
I suspect that the average Deloitte associate’s applicable technical knowledge of power network components might be at the same level as these guys’ knowledge of commercial breeding pigs. Thus their report on Grady’s mouldy and corroded ‘asset’ will thus be equally informative as to exactly what is really going on – But maybe that’s the plan. I can hardly see why it is worth waiting for.
Finding out what it’s all worth to be MADE SAFE was never going to be a flying pig near what Kyle Cameron and team will scope in ‘review’ by Deloitte – and given the terms of reference miss the main question that Richard Healey has underlined (as at 6 Nov 2016), which he believes is the only one that’s relevant:
DOES THE STATE OF THE AURORA NETWORK POSE AN UNACCEPTABLE RISK TO THE SAFETY OF THE PEOPLE WHO WORK ON IT AND TO THE WIDER COMMUNITY?
Go to https://dunedinstadium.wordpress.com/2016/11/06/healey-responds-to-dchl-terms-of-reference-for-delta-review/
—
I put the word *question* in the search box at right and it brought up (excuse me, Rob) a pig litter of questions not answered by those who have decimated the finances and integrity of Dunedin’s city council over the last 20 years —the good old boys and their freeloading associates. An udder scandal.
Who knew when this website started that the electricity network would be the very item to thread Everything that has proved sick and bad without, as yet, accountability, court action and prosecution.
So before anyone gets hopeful that there’s a way to afford the salvage of Aurora/Delta’s burnt asset…. remember, sadly, that the mafia tend to live another day – as all fathead goons do. But beautifully, ironically (!), their disappearance to The Lakes in grey retirement is no escape from a degraded network affected by high winds or snow loads…. much less the Alpine Fault when it rips.
Richard, as whistleblower, has written oft times that he doesn’t want things to get personal. I should respect that ideal. But it’s difficult not to see the cumulative effect of about twenty local men and their continual plunder and despised rorts against the Otago community.
Meanwhile, we should be giving constructive support so not to lose all valuable staff at Aurora/Delta, those who can professionally assist to help and educate us* out of this mess – including the whistleblowers.
Yes, I’m wondering who Us really is after reading that dirty swill from DCC in Saturday’s newspaper.
Another typical MUST READ from Richard Healey’s Facebook:
█ https://www.facebook.com/notes/richard-healey/de-spinning-the-work-of-gyroscope-johnson/10155769330409848
In reply to https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/questions-we-asked-deltaaurora
The comments to his post are excellent too.
Sat, 11 Mar 2017
ODT: Council refuses to reveal fraud details
By Chris Morris
The Dunedin City Council is refusing to reveal the details of failings that allowed the $1.5million Citifleet fraud to continue undetected for more than a decade. An Official Information Act request by the Otago Daily Times asked the council to release information on the gaps in its internal processes identified by Deloitte. Cont/