[OR, What to do when Grady Cameron’s much vaunted $30million project sum doesn’t exist anywhere except on Mars]
Defining dangerous workplaces and public disaster —with the largest, most ‘shocking’ capital D. No one has to Die in the plantation… but the level of unknowing company management tells us the risk is too high.
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[Say what?]
The programme needed to be based on “science and engineering” and not perception. –Godfrey Brosnan
### ODT Online Sat, 11 Feb 2017
Aurora affected by pole, staff shortages
By Vaughan Elder
Aurora Energy might not replace the number of poles it promised as part of its $30million fast-tracked scheme. In a wide-ranging interview with the Otago Daily Times, the man tasked with leading the programme, Godfrey Brosnan, accepted it might not be possible to replace by December all 2910 poles included in the original target.
“I’m not going to get into the tennis match with [former programme director Jarrod Stewart] and Richard [Healey]. All I can say is what my approach is. “What you do is you just race for it. You plant poles — you plant poles at speed but with safety and that’s going to be the approach.”
….The programme was starting next week, 20 days ahead of schedule … Mr Brosnan was unapologetic about the fact Aurora would re-test poles and not replace any deemed up to scratch … “One thing that the public needs to realise and I had to realise as well, is some of these wooden poles are ugly, but it doesn’t mean to say they are falling down.”
Read more
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ODT Online Thu, 29 Dec 2016
Director for $30m pole project
By Vaughan Elder
Lines company Aurora Energy has appointed a director to oversee its $30.25million pole replacement programme. Two memos sent to staff at Aurora’s sister company, Delta, before Christmas have been leaked to the Otago Daily Times. One is from chief executive Grady Cameron and the other from newly appointed chairman Steve Thompson. Mr Cameron outlined progress on the company’s accelerated plan to replace nearly 3000 poles in Aurora’s electricity network which is spread across Dunedin, Central Otago and the Queenstown Lakes area. He emphasised the scale of the job, saying it would be “one of the largest construction projects in Otago during 2017”. Godfrey Brosnan had been appointed programme director and would report directly to Mr Cameron. “Godfrey is an experienced project manager with a background in complex capital works,” he said. Mr Brosnan’s appointment comes after previous director Jarrod Stewart resigned.
Read more
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Related Posts and Comments:
6.2.17 Delta #EpicPowerFail 9 —The Curious Case of Godfrey Brosnan and Jarrod Stewart
19.1.17 Jarrod Stewart is EXACTLY RIGHT [what would Steve Thompson know]
█ For more, enter the terms *delta*, *aurora*, *grady*, *steve thompson*, *richard healey*, *dchl*, *epicpowerfail* or *epic fraud* in the search box at right.
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
This post is offered in the public interest.
*Image: pinimg.com – planted poles…
aurora energy logo merge by whatifdunedin
What if? Dunedin... 
Expecting more than two decades worth of deferred maintenance on thousands of decaying poles to be replaced by Christmas is surely asking a bit much of Santa.
There was a very capable CEO who worked wonders in Canterbury after the earthquakes decimated large parts of their lines network. Perhaps Roger Sutton might get his shoulder tapped.
We have to seriously question the ability of Delta’s present executive management to plan and execute such an ambitious network patch-up job after the track record we have with their oversight of many lost contracts and non payment for Yaldhurst. It’s our money being wasted.
Latest from Richard Healey:
Pphheeeewww!!
The more I hear from Richard, the less I want to hear from the Delta boys, especially someone charged with being the ‘Director of Pole Replacement Program’ and having absolutely nil relevant industry experience. ‘Planting’ pine trees as fast as you can = fair enough. ‘Planting’ poles in the same manner with all the associated technical, connectivity and safety issues = specialised stuff.
We are seeing Delta in high-level bumbling mode again. Throw tens of millions at a problem and hope for the best.
Can’t even Spiro Anastasiou, that golden tongued deliverer of PR spin contracted by Delta last year, manage to say something slightly convincing. Perhaps he too has recognised ‘Mission Impossible’ with the present arrangement and shot through.
Shareholders in any public company with such an appalling track record would have remedied the situation long ago. Or the company would have been liquidated.
Remember Mr Crombie, this is a ratepayer-owned company. Liquidating ratepayers’ pockets for incompetence doesn’t sit well and is not acceptable.
At Facebook yesterday:
So when Delta loses its head of Engineering and you have monkeys – with no industry experience or local knowledge of the existing network and the INHERENT RISKS – overseeing the unfunded pole replacement programme >>>>> Head for the goddam hills, hills without pylons, hills without lines.
Protect you and yours – this is the Wild Wild West.
Wakey wakey Mr Crombie.
Your position at DCHL is requiring that effective leadership be taken immediately.
You are well paid for this role. This is your job.
Aurora / Delta is in a desperate situation.
And so is Dunedin City because of that.
This debacle is unprecedented.
Get your A into G. Sort it.
Excerpts from Richard Healey’s Facebook 11.2.17:
[click to enlarge]
Looks awfully to me like accountants again poke their little noses in (for the rewards of course), produce reports (see Deloitte) and directions about things they know nothing about. Happens with frequent occasion, mostly innocuous and nothing hurts, the money flows, the Mayor waxes enthusiastically and all is well.
But not it seems this time. The facts are now so burnt at the stake, the reports are dead in the water, the directors are spent and found to have no clothes, the Mayor has blown all his credibility, the company is at a neutral stage when it comes to solving the problem, and the situation gets worse. Poles, Huh? Land deals, Huh? Debt Huh Huh?? How do we think the ratepayers will come out of all this? Either no lights on and/or no money left for the city’s Stadium, Mosgiel Aquatic Centre, Never mind the strategic infrastructure serving the ‘Three Waters Programme’. That is where the elected council, so ably led by Mayor Dave Cull come into focus. Not a pretty sight I have to say. Still, there’ll be a cycleway along the State Highway One to tantalise the PR men when the first fatal happens. As long as Richard Healey is prepared to keep the acid flowing, that is how much sooner the whole business cleans itself right out up to the Mayor.
Calvin. I have NEVER seen a company so drastically restructured by a volunteer, a man with huge electrical industry knowledge and experience, and a selfless man with ethics and principles.
‘Key’ directors gone, a total boardroom restructure, a couple of grossly overpaid and ineffectual execs gone, a shockingly frank expose in the Deloitte report, an admission from the CEO that there is actually a massive network problem, and an unprecedented financial allocation to fix it.
And as predicted by Richard Healey months ago, the masterplan ‘accelerated pole replacement program’ has been delayed, and is now stalled. Key design staff have walked, there are no materials to work with, and enough experienced work crews are unobtainable.
And Mr Crombie doesn’t seem to have noticed that Delta’s remaining staff have little confidence in their leader. He does not hold their respect, and needs to go, along with his highly paid troupe of PR people who would be totally superfluous in an organisation where the quality of its effective management planning, oversight, and positive company culture do the talking.
Aurora / Delta is now in a serious crisis. This has been building for years, but its coterie of excessively overpaid plonkers haven’t had the vision or the balls to action the overdue and drastically needed network upgrading that had been identified years ago.
We have been paying this lot for what?
Undoubtedly, some very generous exit packages are still to come for some woeful contributions to Dunedin’s sorry state.
Shake your pockets out a little bit more please Dunedinites.
And yet Crombie and the Grader are still wallowing McDuck style in ratepayers’ banknotes.
Money is clearly a wonder cure for embarrassment. Those of us who have less of it would be out of town with false moustaches and changed names if linked to a fraction as many execrable decisions, endangering as well as indebting the city.
Boldor commenting at the ODT story isn’t one of the passive braindead Dunedinites that continue to allow Cull fair passage as nincompoop figurehead of the Nothing Left City Council:
Boldor Sat, 11/02/2017 – 7:33am #
When is our Mayor going to sack the half wit clown that runs Delta this is a council company owned by the rate payer and the ratepayers want action on this mindless and money wasting stupidity,Grady Cameron is not fit to run a kindergarten on his overbloated half million dollar outrageous salary.
ODT 11.2.17 (page 30)
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I don’t think Delta has a hope in hell of (re)gaining any credibility—
Since Stuart McLauchlan and mates have been in charge of the Aurora Energy and Delta boards, and their instatement of CEO Grady Cameron, no credibility has been possible. Let’s not forget the squirrel John Walsh before them…
Can either company survive. Both companies via the boards and ELT are so totally lined up for attack where before they were sailing under jury rig.
Meanwhile, a judicial conference was held on 8 February. Delta is by joinder embroiled in the constructive fraud case being taken by the neighbours of – dare we say [joint venture alert] – Delta/Noble’s Yaldhurst subdivision; as such, Delta has the obligation to provide discovery. This will get interesting.
If the A/D chief executive is found collapsed or stiff in his running gear on a back road before June 30, no-one will be surprised.
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AmyWinehouseVEVO Uploaded on Dec 23, 2009
Amy Winehouse – Back To Black
We only said goodbye with words
I died a hundred times
More excerpts from Richard Healey’s Facebook 11.2.17:
[click to enlarge]
●●● Michael Magner is a Lineman at Downer Utilities Alliance New Zealand.
Dog bless the internet! How would those men coming from out of town have got honest warnings before it was invented?
Editor Barry Stewart on Ch39 News this evening:
“Central Otago mayor has slammed Delta’s roll-out, or the slower than promised roll-out of its pole replacement plan.
See story in tomorrow’s newspaper.
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[For latest, go to comments at new post by CD – DCC not Delta #EpicFail : Wall Street falsehoods and a world class debt]