Rather, Daaave promotes the SHONKY programmed spend on non-essential CBD tart-ups. Not reprioritising council budgets then, Daaave….. to solve the Superduper-Mystery of council-owned Aurora/Delta LOST OR MISPLACED FUNDS, WHERE DID THEY GO ? WHERE WERE THEY SPENT ? Hundreds of millions of dollars lost from Otago ratepayers and electricity users, Daaave…..
You are going to make them pay again.
ODT 25.2.17 (page 34) tweaked
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Otago Manufacturers need a Safe and Secure supply of Electricity.
The Mayor of Dunedin is making sure this won’t happen.
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
This post is offered in the public interest.
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Filed under Aurora Energy, Business, Central Otago, Corruption, Crime, DCC, DCHL, DCTL, Delta, Democracy, Dunedin, Economics, Electricity, Finance, Geography, Health, Hot air, Infrastructure, LTP/AP, Media, Name, New Zealand, OAG, Ombudsman, People, Perversion, Pet projects, Politics, Project management, Property, Public interest, Queenstown Lakes, Resource management, SFO, Town planning, Travesty, Urban design, What stadium
Tagged as Aurora Energy Ltd, Central City Plan, Central Otago ratepayers, Core infrastructure, Council debt CRISIS, DCC, DCC Annual Plan 2017/18, DCC Infrastructure and Networks, DCC Long Term Plan, DCC Mayor and Councillors, DCHL, DCTL, Degraded electricity network, Delta Utility Services Ltd, Dunedin CBD, Dunedin City Council, Dunedin City Holdings Ltd, Dunedin City Treasury Ltd, Dunedin ratepayers, Finance, FISCAL NIGHTMARES, Graham Crombie, Heads in the sand, Lack of accountability, Lack of transparency, Mayor Cull, Otago power network, Queenstown Lakes ratepayers, Urban street improvements, WHERE'S THE LOOT
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What if? Dunedin... 
To quote “The Castle” “How much does he want for it?” (An amount is given) “He’s DREAMIN'”!!!
One suggestion – don’t replace pavers.
The replacement budget is ALL needed for replacing necessities. Power poles, Dave, and the things that go on power poles so electricity can arrive safely where it is needed. It is needed, Dave. There are still manufacturers and service providers and companies making mysterious IT stuff and if they don’t have electricity things won’t work very well at all, Dave.
On the other hand, pavers and sustainability initiative subcommittees could vanish overnight without any ill effects. For the former, call the guys who fill potholes and lo! the road is ticketty-boo again. For the latter, meh “with shifafa on the side”.
From his ODT letter, Tony Crick, the former supporter of Dave Cull’s mayoral ambitions, seems to have realised that he made a bad mistake. As a leader, Dave Cull has been a failure. He continues to under-fund essential infrastructure and pretends that he can spend to the max on all sorts of useless crap. In his ODT reply, Cull says he has found “efficiencies and savings”. What he means is that he has diverted funds away from essential infrastructure renewals and upgrades, to pay for his undisciplined spending urges.
As an example, the stormwater renewals budget in the draft annual plan for the next financial year is a significant reduction on the amount decided in the 2015 Long Term Plan (LTP). The LTP amount was already inadequate. Our important infrastructure is falling to bits because of this diversion of funds. This can not continue. Tony Crick acknowledges “the looming risk of a massive blow-out across the board”. Mr Crick is a bit behind the times – the auditor of the LTP has already told us about the huge backlog of 3-waters renewals spending. Since then, it has become even worse and will be even more worse if the proposed annual plan is accepted by our feckless and misinformed councillors.
The auditor told us that the LTP budget didn’t balance and was a pack of lies (translated) and now the finances have become worse. The LTP forecasts are shot to pieces. Dave Cull and the CEO intend to continue their spending splurge for as long as they can. Next year’s LTP will force the issue. Also, another infrastructure failure might happen before then to speed things up. Cull must know what is needed, but he seems to not have the courage to make the very necessary and very large cuts to his list of wasteful and unwanted spending. Councillors should try to understand what’s going on.
JimmyJones, I watched Nigel Latta last night. The topic was debt from out of control spending on crap the people realised they didn’t need but still kept buying even though it kept them forever in debt. One woman wanted to go overseas but among other money mistakes persistently bought “treats” at the supermarket, impelled to spend on bags and packets of nutrition-free un-food, thus was never able to save two coins towards her big wish. She knew, but what she knew was completely inconsistent with what she did.
Cull to a T.
“Cull must know what is needed” you say. Perhaps he does, perrrrr-haps. Can he change his behaviour though or, faced with big expensive difficulties, does he retreat to his version of “comfort eating” and buying crap (and a second crap FREE) from midnight telemarketers?
Pavers, for dog’s sake, need replacing. Pavers! In the face of all that’s gone majorly disastrous on his watch he thinks “pavers”.
IMO reason went off-site some time ago. The ability is not there, if it ever was.
“Under my watch, successive councils have reduced debt considerably….”
In my capacity as a ratepayer I have been responsible for 2 orbits of Pluto one anticlockwise, and the profitable fleet of fully self contained campervans on Mars.
One of us may be less deluded than the other. Answers on a postcard to – no, forget it, NZPost won’t get it anywhere before I’m up to my ears in wof and rego’s for the campervans.
Later this morning the ODT brings news of DCC support for the Mosgiel pool project following the second local survey – another DCC budget horror for Dunedin ratepayers at large.
This is what happens when DCC’s chair of the Finance and CCO Committee is PRO the pet pool project. LET NOTHING STAND IN ITS WAY. Tens of millions later, don’t be fooled – there is no cheap way to effect this trinket.
At Facebook:
Councils don’t reduce debt: Councils have no money other than that of the ratepayers. It is ratepayer money that is used, whatever it is used for. It would be more accurate to say that during Dave’s watch the Council voted for demanding money from ratepayers to spend on various useful and useless stuff, some of which was used to borrow less in the next year than was to be spent in that year.
DCC starts planning to refurbish Civic Centre
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/dcc-starts-planning-refurbish-civic-centre
“The Dunedin City Council has begun planning for the potentially pricey refurbishment of its Civic Centre headquarters.”
…and good news for the users of the library lift. Looks like one that works might eventually be available for staff and public:
“The maintenance plans also included a $4.3million refurbishment of the central city library, which was already budgeted to begin in 2019-20.”
No hurry though. Gotta get Civic Centre carpets sorted….
But wait – there are more important calls on the Mighty Magic Bottomless Barrel of Gold that councillors have access to:
“At last Tuesday’s council meeting, councillors voted to dip into a fund that included $280,000 for building maintenance, in order to fund food resilience ($50,000) and Te Ao Turoa environment strategy ($150,000) initiatives for 2017-18.”
The chief executive – was it after duress? – told last week’s full council meeting that the building maintenance fund [being plundered for Jinty’s ghost and hopefully not her salaried presence anew] would top up again via interest savings.
Note: Wonder. Did councillor politicians surprise staff with this Undisciplined [green] directive ?
Elizabeth: it looks like the “green directives” are very well organised. Apart from the environment strategy and the energy strategy, another gift to the city from Cr Jinty was a motion for the DCC to join the Compact Of Mayors (COM). This was formed by ICLEI and other extremists to promote their enviro-nazi and agenda 21 ideology. Recent staff comments show that they have made commitments to COM to take certain actions and adopt its policies. Most of the councillors voted for this without knowing what they were doing.
The decision to adopt the COM policies has not been consulted on and the total cost of pursuing these commitments will remain secret – it seems likely that the costs of the energy, food resilience and environment strategies are part of these commitments. The DCC has been a member of ICLEI (International Council For Local Environmental Initiatives) for many years with its associated annual fees and destructive policy guidance. Dave Cull is a big fan of this stuff, which explains why he puts bicycles first and infrastructure last. Staff seem to support his position.
JimmyJones we need a massive dose of Trump globally – Douglas Field is daily sending tracts from overseas media/blogs which suggest the slugs at Dunedin will be salted sooner than later. Go Trump and Team!
Yes. Drain the swamp. Our current councillors might not have realised that there are two power centres at the DCC: the councillors themselves and the mayor and staff together. The main job of the councillors is to protect the city from the mayor and staff and their unwise spending proclivities. So far they have done a terrible job.
We voted in numbskulls. or some of us did.
The history of Dunedin local body elections of the last 30 years at least.
Yep, it’s stomach churning amounts of stupidity, greed and self-centered manipulation of public affairs that gave Trump his win. After a certain point a tornado-meets-earthquake shake-up looks pretty good compared with “normal” …
…normal as in SNAFU, Situation Normal, All F*cked Up.
Hype O’Thermia: Dave Cull seems to have a very foolish idea of priorities for the city. My guess is that he is aware that he is creating a crisis, but can’t stop himself. Last year (ISC 26/4/16) the DCC CEO explained to him the reasons why the Mosgiel and South Dunedin stormwater systems will remain dangerously sub-standard. She said the problem that we’ve got is that we’re trying to deal with this in an austerity time when we are also trying to pay off $220 million worth of debt – so we are financially constrained. Since then, the new plan is to spend more on useless, expensive, unwanted crap and even less on essential infrastructure.
The state of our water/sewer/stormwater systems has been going backwards for years. The new annual plan accelerates this decline. Things are getting worse much faster. When the crisis comes, Cull’s answer will be a large rates increase – a rates increase which he should have avoided by not pilfering rates money for other purposes. How do we stop this guy.
I do like that word PILFERING
It would seem from what’s being said that no-one is happy with Mayor Cull nor the council. Yet, it is a fact that they were all voted in by the citizens of Dunedin. By extension it could be argued that in general the citizens are incompetent. What? I hear you say, but is this not a fact? Maybe the water needs testing or the pavers need fixing but the Mosgiel Aquatic Centre is a ‘Monty’. I suggest it is a virulent case of denial or “NIMBY.’ Whatever, it reeks of coming disasters thick and large.
Like Daaave’s brain— confusing
At Facebook, a video:
Leading up to last year’s election, Dave Cull was able to claim that under his leadership the DCC’s debt was reduced. For the last financial year, the debt was reduced, but it was dishonest for him to claim that this reduction was due to good management – in fact it was the result of a reckless disregard for the state of the city’s infrastructure. Dave’s cunning plan to get re-elected was to make significant cuts to essential infrastructure renewals and upgrades and use this money to pay off some debt. This is called “window-dressing”. Here is what happened in the financial year to 30/6/16:
● Debt was reduced by $13.5 million
● Most of this was the result of a cut in capital expenditure ($7.5 million) and a gain from net asset sales ($3.9 million)
In comparison to the year before (year to 30/6/15), the areas most seriously affected by this cut in capital expenditure were these:
● Roading & Footpaths: cut of 31%
● Water Supply: cut of 24%
● Wastewater (sewerage): cut of 50%
● Stormwater: cut of 20%
These figures are from the latest DCC annual report (2015/16). Dave, in his reply to Tony Crick, calls these asset sales and cuts in capital expenditure “efficiencies and savings”, but there is nothing efficient about not replacing worn-out pipes. Dave Cull’s solution to the problem of how to get re-elected as mayor has been harmful to the city’s infrastructure and the safety and well-being of the citizens. Our essential infrastructure continues to deteriorate.
JimmyJones rides again!
Well done JJ for putting it so clearly.
Fiji has no cycle lanes, tourists come from all over the world.
They must be gutted when they get there and find the tourist brochures didn’t mention lack of cycle lanes. Did you ever hear of anyone going to Fiji twice?
Tony Crick has a lot to answer for. He and Julian Smith between them engineered Cull’s election first time round. Obviously Tony has since had a rethink on the subject, but instead of just picking holes in Cull’s performances he ought to front up and say, “Sorry I FUBARed’ this and I now intend to rectify the damage by showing blow by blow where Cull’s shortcomings are.
For starters you might point out the claim he has reduced the city’s debt by $13.5million, is nothing but a pipe dream unsubstantiated by fact. Because you underspend and use that to reduce debt doesn’t remove the reasons in the true turn of events. As JimmyJones points out, huge underspends on infrastructure does not result in a better, richer city. In fact it acts in the reverse. The only hope is that it will hold together till Dave Cull gets his ‘fancy hat’ and gets to hell out of it to retire contemplating his navel. He is rapidly turning into the worst representative yet and it will be interesting to see how his defamation case with Cr Lee Vandervis goes, not withstanding the fact that he is employing an Auckland ‘hotshot’ defamation lawyer fully paid by the DCC (in excess of $35,000 to date)which immediately poses another problem of an ethical nature. In a word, casually abuse a councilor, use the ratepayer to underwrite the costs and hope like hell he wins.
This in a nutshell is the man that Tony Crick and Julian Smith put there, so please front up and accept the larger portion of the blame.