Pressuring Cull and his GD Party . . .

Full council voting figures here (via DCC website)

The local newspaper styles Cull’s return as mayor as a “crushing victory”.
This is the mayor who in the immediate past term continued to spend ratepayer dollars —sinking the council deeper in debt, failing to turn the city’s fortunes around. Cull led a council without ability to look rationally, prudently and conservatively at city finances. Lots of you brought him back. Cull fails to be transparent, lacks accountability, and often appears weak in adversity. If he can muster his Greater Dunedin ‘Party’ votes, expect more of same —however, with the return of Cr Lee Vandervis and timely arrival of new councillors Hilary Calvert and Doug Hall, Liability Cull better keep his helmet on.

Crs Hilary Calvert, Doug Hall, Lee Vandervis

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ODT: Figures reveal Cull’s crushing victory
Dunedin mayor Dave Cull thrashed his nearest challenger by 12,000 votes, voting figures reveal. Because of the STV system, Dunedin’s voting figures are released later than other other authorities so the margin of Mr Cull’s victory was not immediately apparent. The figures now released show he polled 18,446 votes while his nearest challenger Hilary Calvert could manage only 6429. High-profile councillor Lee Vandervis was third with 5841 votes. Among the other challengers Andrew Whiley polled 2946 votes, Aaron Hawkins 2900, Pete George 779, Olivier Lequex 503 and Kevin Dwyer 217. Read more + Video

ODT: Voters endorse Southern mayors
Southern mayors have been told to keep up the good work by voters who have returned incumbents to office across much of the lower South Island.
In Dunedin, Mayor Dave Cull fended off a challenge from eight rivals, led by former Act New Zealand MP Hilary Calvert and followed by incumbent Dunedin city councillor Lee Vandervis. Mr Cull told the Otago Daily Times it was “really gratifying to get the confidence of the community reinforced”. Read more

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Image: Dave Cull, detail [ODT files]

Stadium: DVML, DVL miserable losers! #grandtheftdebt

### ch9.co.nz June 20, 2013 – 6:18pm
DVML forecasts small profit
The company that runs Forsyth Barr Stadium has forecast a small surplus for the first time in 2015. DVML has been running at a loss, but forecasts that will change to a $10,000 surplus. But the company that owns the stadium, DVL, has forecast its loss will be about $1 million more than expected, at more than $5 million. DCC chief executive Paul Orders said both were just projections, and the DVL loss was due to tax changes. The forecasts will be considered by the council on Monday.
Ch39 Link [no video available]

SURPRISE
Reports for the Council meeting to be held on Monday 24 June 2013 at 1pm not yet available at the DCC website.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Shrinkwrap the Mayor of Dunedin —Cull snubs Dalai Lama #shame

Shortsighted removal of diplomacy by ‘city leader’.

There were also no plans to stage a civic reception for the Dalai Lama, Mr Cull said yesterday. He defended both decisions, describing the Nobel Peace Prize laureate as “a representative of a minority religious faith” and questioning the benefit of engaging with him. –ODT

Politically awkward, after DCC/COC flying visits to Shanghai.

The decision was confirmed publicly just days after Mr Cull led a Dunedin delegation to Shanghai to help foster closer ties with one of the communist powerhouse’s major economic centres. –ODT

British Prime Minister David Cameron met the Dalai Lama last year. He was duly scolded by China and later cancelled a state visit after strong indications he would not be granted meetings with senior figures. –ODT

Good on former mayor Sukhi Turner for speaking up !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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### ODT Online Tue, 30 Apr 2013
Mayor denies bowing to wishes of China over Dalai Lama’s visit
By Chris Morris
Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull’s decision to sidestep a speaking engagement with the Dalai Lama appears to be aimed at avoiding the ire of China, a University of Otago academic, Dr Nicholas Khoo, says. However, the move has backfired in the eyes of former Dunedin mayor Sukhi Turner, who said the city was in danger of adopting a ”cargo cult mentality” and becoming ”supplicants to China”. It was confirmed yesterday Mr Cull had declined an invitation by tour organisers to introduce the Dalai Lama at a public talk in the Dunedin Town Hall, before up to 2000 people, on June 11.
Read more

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### ODT Online Tue, 30 Apr 2013
Who else has sidestepped the Dalai Lama?
Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull has some high-profile company when it comes to sidestepping the Dalai Lama. US President Barack Obama and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard are among political leaders who have declined to meet the Tibetan spiritual leader.
Read more

[St Farry suggested the Dalai Lama could be a use for the stadium, wtf]

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The Royal Society carries news coverage of THAT ‘cargo cult’ address:

Turner slams business mentality in ‘state of city’ speech
Posted: Tue, 23 Apr 1996 under Science in the News

Dunedin, April 23 – Dunedin should abandon its “big industry fetish” and encourage smaller, environmentally-friendly businesses, Dunedin Mayor Sukhi Turner said in her first “State of the City” speech last night.

Addressing combined members of Dunedin Lions Clubs, she pushed a strong “green” message in her vision of Dunedin’s economic future. The city’s first obligation was to stop behaving like primitive tribespeople, expecting foreigners to bring jobs and prosperity into the town, she said.

She rejected recent public accusations of being seen as opposed to development and “a very poor advocate” for Dunedin. But she said the cargo-cult mentality among Dunedin’s business community was a major obstacle to any serious discussion of the city’s future.

“Whether it be an aluminium smelter at Aramoana, a meat-processing plant on the Taieri or an environmentally suspect timber mill… the message is the same: only monstrous, ecologically damaging and socially destructive projects, preferably foreign-owned and financed, can rescue Dunedin’s fortunes.”

Many people saw environmental and developmental concerns as diametrically opposed. But in modern thinking the two were integrated imperatives.

“An industry that throws chemically stable toxic waste into our ecosystems is storing up disaster for us all.

“It is not a question of the environment versus development, it is simply a question of how much we are going to pay and when.”

Dunedin City Council and Otago Chamber of Commerce and Industry should be helping out small, knowledge-based businesses such as Animation Research Ltd which had developed computer graphic technology for America’s Cup races.

Dunedin would never again dominate New Zealand’s economy and its residents must stop trying to recapture a past which had gone forever, she said.

Education and health were two crucial industries under-pinning the city’s economy. Both could help generate whole clusters of subsidiary enterprises based on knowledge resources ready-to-hand at tertiary institutions.

“Small-scale, knowledge-based, high-tech and environmentally-friendly industries do not only open up the prospect of lucrative export contracts, they play to the strengths of the Dunedin community with its solid tradition of smallness and deep-seated love of learning,” Mrs Turner said.

After the speech she said she was not opposed to large-scale industry, as long as it “made sense”, was pollution-free and met Resource Management Act regulations.

However, the belief that salvation would come from large businesses was simplified reasoning. “It doesn’t work like that,” she said.
NZPA ODT ps 23/04/96 09-38NZ
RS Link

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

ODT Online: ‘Gone, deleted, it never happened, Councillor’

All is safe, RT. We know nothing!

Elizabeth @ What if? Dunedin
Submitted on 2013/02/10 at 12:39 pm | In reply to Hype O’Thermia.

This one sent to http://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/opinion/244913/do-maths-stadium-costs hasn’t aired, thrown into the ghost bucket, I guess:

Public accountability, arithmetic
Submitted by ej kerr on Sat, 09/02/2013 – 6:49pm

There’s reason to be grateful to members of the public quickly leaping on superficialities put out by the councillor, as ‘spokesman’ for the DCC on the loss making stadium.

The city council in its wisdom formed a series of shells to ‘see through’ the stadium project; these have resulted in a lack of transparency in governance, a resounding loss of accountability, and multiple opportunities for potential misrepresentation to citizens and ratepayers.

The cumulative bid to foster acceptance in the community for ‘intergenerational debt’ being loaded on citizen ratepayers – as if ‘sustainable’, as if ‘logical’, for future fortunes to be made and shared – was/is a highly immoral behaviour that council politicians are ultimately responsible for.

At the Milton Hilton rests a flag-waver to a board’s lack of diligence and knowledge of its own accounting systems. We don’t need another flag waver, councillor…. not in apology to the city council’s callous disregard for financial prudence.

UPDATE 11.2.13
No longer at the Milton Hilton, the crim-flagwaver has been moved to a 4-bedroom house in “the grounds” of another HM’s establishment near Christchurch.

Related Posts and Comments:
6.2.13 Editorial bias
29.1.13 Pecuniary interest: Crs Wilson and Thomson in events fund debate

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Editorial bias

Received today from Russell Garbutt [email].

Have readers of the ODT online site noticed the failure of the ODT Online Editor to acknowledge that they are abridging comments or simply wiping them?

Two examples of mine recently spring to mind and the context shows where the sympathies of the ODT lies. The first was in response to a comment made by speedfreak43 who noted that the GV of Carisbrook at the time the dear old DCC masquerading as a body acting in the interests of the ratepayers was about $1.5m when the purchase price from the ORFU who really run the DCC, was $7m. This is what I wrote, which simply vanished into thin air:

“speedfreak43, I think you are pretty close to the mark with the recollection of a GV of about $1.5m for Carisbrook. That makes this story even more worth pursuing by the ODT. Here we have a previous owner in the financial doodah for $7m – interestingly because of their purchases of Auckland bars to carry out their pokie fund rort – bailed out by a Council decision to purchase at a price many times more than what is clearly a market price. All backed up by “valuations” that appear to be nothing other than part of the shonky deals done behind closed doors. All replicated almost exactly with Luggate and Jack’s Point. Bearing in mind that every $1m of spend without income that this Council does equates to 1% on the rates and you can see that these 3 property deals alone have cost Dunedin ratepayers close on 15% of rates increases. My question again – who is going to hold these Councillors accountable?”

Now why this sensitivity? The ORFU were involved in a rort and everyone knows that. Were there shonky deals done behind closed doors? Well, we have Carisbrook, Jacks Point and Luggate as examples that are in the public domain. Is it that the ODT don’t want some Councillors to be exposed for what they are? Well here my posting in another thread with the deleted portion emboldened.

“If the promoters are well aware in advance of sound issues at the stadium and have prepared accordingly, then a simple question remains unanswered. Why do patrons who shell out money to see and hear acts at the stadium rate the sound quality over the PA systems as “abhorrent”? While pondering that answer, why is it that, after we were all told that the surface was the most high-tech, durable and incredible surface ever devised that the recent soccer fixture rated the surface as being the worst they had played on? When considering the answer to that question, readers may like to consider just how much they have paid in their rates to achieve these levels of mediocrity. Perhaps Malcolm Farry and the stadium Councillors could provide some answers?”

So, the ODT had printed stories about the sound quality and the turf quality so they couldn’t take exception to that, but they didn’t want Farry and the Stadium Councillors being asked to be held accountable.

This I suggest, is a very clear indication of where the ODT’s sympathies and probable support will be for any forthcoming Council elections. Can it logically be seen in any other way?

[ends]

Related Posts and Comments:
23.1.13 Editorial spin, disagrees?!
1.1.13 Journalist sums up 2012, against the ‘odds’ how does it rate ?
10.6.12 What won’t get printed on ORT’s front page (pssst, about the Albatross…….)
3.8.12 Extraordinary editorials
28.7.12 Pokie fraud: ODT fails to notice own backyard
26.6.12 Defamation
7.5.12 ODT: “the cupboard has been bare” [still is]
4.2.12 Editor pitches for rugby nursery
31.12.11 Dishonourable mention
4.10.11 Something hyped in the news
[the list goes on . . . ]

Editorial Note:
When the What if? moderators enter “abridge” in their dashboard search box up come 74 items of observation and complaint on multiple threads about comments being abridged or not published after submission to ODT Online.
Spot the trend.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Stadium: DCC runs amok with $750K annual subsidy to DVML

Updated Post 12.12.12 2:30am

Dunedin City Council has voted for ratepayers to substantially subsidise the multimillion dollar loss-making stadium operation!

The local body elections take place in October 2013 !!!

### ODT Online Tue, 11 Dec 2012
$750,000 a year for community use of stadium
By Chris Morris
Details of a deal under which the Dunedin City Council will spend $750,000 a year to subsidise greater community use of the Forsyth Barr Stadium have been confirmed. Councillors at yesterday’s full council meeting voted to accept a new service level agreement between the council and Dunedin Venues Management Ltd, the company running the city’s loss-making roofed venue.

Council chief executive Paul Orders said the agreement would be ”a holding position” until the outcome of the wider review was known. Despite opposition from Crs Thomson, Vandervis and Teresa Stevenson, councillors voted 11-3 to approve the agreement.

The agreement confirmed the council would pay $750,000 a year to DVML in return for enhanced access to the venue – at reduced or no cost – for community groups. The extra funding was first agreed by councillors in May, but the service level agreement – detailing the requirements of each party as part of the deal – was only ready to be endorsed by councillors yesterday.
Read more

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Report – Council – 10/12/2012 (PDF, 141.1 KB)
Service Level Agreement between the Dunedin City Council and Dunedin Venues Management Ltd

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr