COMPLETE Dis-satisfaction with DCC, DCHL, DVML, DVL, Delta….

Fake it til you make it, and hey, don’t lift the marigolds.

Sorry Daaave, looks like a D for your council’s governance. —Actually, for the avoidance of euphemism, make that D- and lower for DIRE Performance, accompanying Drivel, and Diabolical treatment of Residents and Ratepayers in the aftermath of emergency situations.

Listening to Yes People and your dwindling voter base isn’t your best hope to resolve ongoing multimillion-dollar losses being sustained by a couple of the council-owned companies, to the point where the holding company led by chairman Crombie, fronts with a “qualified audit” only on presentation of its annual report(?) to Council.

[In July 2015 Graham Crombie was appointed to the Commerce Commission as an Associate Commissioner for a five year term.]

Damages to employment, liveability and opportunity in a No-growth city keep stacking.

—

“It is also yet another example of good public service jobs being lost from our smaller towns and cities.” –PSA spokeswoman

### ODT Online Thu, 13 Oct 2016
ACC jobs to go in Dunedin
By Vaughan Elder
After consulting with staff since June, the decision had been made to relocate all the roles over the next 12 to 18 months to the larger Christchurch office and have “one centre for consistent customer and rehabilitation services across the Southern region”.
Read more

****

Asked about people who continued to be negative about the city, he said: “Negativity is an attitude, it’s not a fact.”

### ODT Online Thu, 13 Oct 2016
Survey ‘shows Dunedin on right track’
By Vaughan Elder
A survey showing Dunedin residents feel increasingly positive about their city shows the city is on the “right track”, Mayor Dave Cull says. […] the annual survey was not all good news. Last year’s June flood was picked as a reason for increasing dissatisfaction with the city’s stormwater system [down 13 points to 43%]. Satisfaction rates also fell when it came to public toilets, the suitability of the city’s roads for cycling and the availability of parks in the central city.
Read more

[Chief executive Sue Bidrose] said some of the areas where there had been negative results this year and in past surveys correlated to negative media coverage in the Otago Daily Times.

*1577 survey responses from 5400 residents randomly selected from the electoral roll,

The Talking Head (without helmet, unprepared)

█ Dunedin City Council (media release)
Residents’ Opinion Survey released 12 Oct 2016. Link

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Image: cdn.guardian.ng – marigold, tweaked by whatifdunedin

Crashed demobilised: picked a bone

This short thread is relocated from another post.

Made a great job of this last Wednesday, during the flood.
Here’s the splintered base of what was once a good bone, oh well. I didn’t even have the pleasure of going skiing to make it happen. The excitement was caused at home, in the dry!

Xray Urgent Doctors – EJ Kerr 6.6.15 Splintered fibula surrounded by swollen tissue (scan of photocopy)

Taking a flash drive with me this week for jpg file from next Xray(s).

Wikipedia: Fibula

. . . .

No sandbagging at South Dunedin for me —just like Mayor Cull!?

Elizabeth
Submitted on 2015/06/06 at 5:50 pm | In reply to Calvin Oaten.
Calvin, welcome back to HAVOC.
To this I will add one item that is none of your concern at all. Totally off topic. I have been rendered stationary for 2-3 months (!!!) as a result of what I thought was just an ankle inversion sprain on Wednesday morning – nope, Xray today shows very unstable fracture, a splintered base to left fibula (Xray picture is outstanding). No-one seems to know why I feel no pain. Hooray. Now wearing moonboot fulltime, using crutches – classic stuff, not flooded maybe, but upstairs apartment dweller hell. Up/down stairs is by seat of pants, literally, for weekly Xrays. ACC claim for household help and more ahead. If I don’t follow orders and the thing splinters apart then I’m to be hospitalised – that sort of week at Dunners. A first, no previous breaks – for me quite funny as challenges go. This will keep me up to speed at What if? and other sites – and my research reading is going to be ACE undisturbed for months. Semi-hibernation.
Not the same, nor nearly as bad, as dealing to a flooded home(s) with vulnerable families and residents of South Dunedin.

Hype O’Thermia
Submitted on 2015/06/07 at 2:22 am
Are you in plaster of paris type plaster? Maximum inconvenience! Fibreglass rocks, soon as I was f’glassed I was driving and doing normal things like making a drink and being able to carry it away from the kitchen bench……
Sounds like a nasty break. There’s not a lot to be said in favour of splintering bone. Mine – same bone but uncomplicated.
I hope you heal up as well as I did. I was lucky. Here’s hoping you are too.]

Elizabeth
Submitted on 2015/06/07 at 3:35 am | In reply to Hype O’Thermia.
No they decided against plaster and gave me very cool black figlas-strengthened moonboot that must not come off. Not allowed to put any weight on left foot at all for 2-3 months, very nasty splinter/shatter, graphic even. Caused by full torsion on impact with floor, quite the worst landing I’ve ever made. Lucky that the bone splinters haven’t sheered off, not yet anyway. Crutches and mobile armless desk chair is the only driving I’ll be doing for next months, wheel chair for longer journeys!

Hype O’Thermia
Submitted on 2015/06/07 at 3:49 am | In reply to Elizabeth.
Ooh aah, not fun.
Showering’s a riot, wanna put out a request for plastic bags for the foot-swathing that’s necessary?

Mike
Submitted on 2015/06/07 at 9:53 am | In reply to Hype O’Thermia.
If she has a moonboot likely she can slip it off for showers with care

Elizabeth
Submitted on 2015/06/07 at 10:59 am | In reply to Mike.
Mike, can’t remove boot, very unstable fracture – doctors orders. Maybe if after bone mend clearly advancing, on instruction of fracture clinic (weekly visits).

Elizabeth
Submitted on 2015/06/07 at 9:57 am | In reply to Hype O’Thermia.
No showering allowed, sponge bathing from here on out.

Mike
Submitted on 2015/06/07 at 9:51 am | In reply to Elizabeth.
Having been there relatively recently I recommend getting ACC to rent you a “knee scooter” to get around the house (assuming you are all on one level) they are silly looking things and more useful than you can imagine.
When the time comes to start putting weight on it spend some of your ACC physio resources to get someone to spend a couple of sessions at the physio pool giving you exercises to do. The pool’s great advantage is that you can easily control the amount of weight you place on the foot by how far you are in the pool from next to nothing when you start to almost nothing at the end. I went everyday for three months.

Elizabeth
Submitted on 2015/06/07 at 11:00 am | In reply to Mike.
Great advice, will check all this out !! Have prior experience at pool for back and foot injuries requiring no weight loading, twenty years ago. Normally robust individual, good to share ideas in case others find themselves in similar situations and grounding :)

Hype O’Thermia
Submitted on 2015/06/07 at 12:01 pm
When I was supposed to spend as much time as poss with foot elevated I took food & thermos back to bed (radio, books, TV all within reach) and propped leg on a beanbag cushion. It was good for sleeping too, the leg nestles into it and didn’t slip off while I was asleep.

Mike
Submitted on 2015/06/07 at 1:38 pm | In reply to Mike.
I should add that I recently gave the physio pool fund a 4-figure donation – they were so useful to me in my recovery they were worth far more than that to me – really ACC should be dropping some cash on their appeal – the alternative is the movie trope of the person learning to walk again on the parallel bars, and being caught by the physio when they fall …. if the pool goes they’ll essentially have to replace it with lots of physios catching people ….
The “Moana will do” people misunderstand that Moana has no careful stairway access (where you can abandon your crutches on your way down) and the wrong depth profiles for self supported exercise – the physio pool is 1/2 gentle slope so you can carefully match the support you need from the water with 1/4 of the pool essentially available for rehabilitation while sharing it with people using it for exercise of various types.
I don’t much care about how pretty the changing rooms are – that’s not why I used the pool – the existing ones are perfectly serviceable, the showers are hard to navigate on one foot (but use the disabled ones) – IMHO a few more hand rails are all they need.

Elizabeth
Submitted on 2015/06/07 at 2:00 pm | In reply to Mike.
Another great breakdown for the physio pool merits. Thanks.

—

One day I might get to the Physio Pool —hopefully, with avoidance of hospitalisation in the meantime.

Dunedin Physio Pool, 140 Hanover Street. Photo: radionz.co.nz

ODT 7.6.15 Comradeship and health benefits too
For Dunedin twins Stephen and Allan Facer, the Otago Therapeutic Pool is about more than injury recovery. It’s a place to heal and keep fit, but also to socialise as part of a keen group of regulars hitting the water at the pool.
Read more

Related Posts and Comments
6.8.14 Otago Therapeutic Pool at Dunedin Hospital
21.8.14 Dirty pool? #SDHB #University

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Government’s council tax freeze

At least 30 Tory-led local authorities are planning to reject demands to freeze tax rates this year, a Telegraph survey finds.

### telegraph.co.uk 8:30AM GMT 11 Jan 2015
Council tax to rise in Tory shires despite freeze ordered by ministers
By Edward Malnick – The Telegraph
Dozens of councils are preparing to defy the Government’s council tax freeze, including many in Conservative heartlands. A survey by The Telegraph found that at least 30 Tory-led local authorities are planning to reject demands to freeze tax rates this year. They are among 60 across England who say they intend to increase bills from April — including almost half of the country’s 27 county councils.

The Government has said councils should help taxpayers with the cost of living and ministers will be particularly concerned in the run-up to the general election in May.

Eric Pickles, the Local Government Secretary, said residents should “demand an explanation” if councils refused the freeze. He accused some of being “democracy dodgers” for planning to push up rates by 1.99 per cent, shy of the 2 per cent threshold at which they would have to hold a referendum.
More than 80 councils said that their proposals would not be published until a later date, raising the prospect of more householders facing rises.
The Telegraph surveyed all 353 of England’s councils about their 2015-16 council tax bills, most of which will be finalised by March. Of the 262 that responded, only four said that they were preparing to reduce their levies, while 116 were planning to go along with the request to freeze rates.
Read more

—

█ Soundings at Whale Oil Beef Hooked:
Cameron Slater 13/1/15 “This would be a fantastic policy to have here, as it would stop the councils doing exceptionally stupid things because there is no way in hell voters would vote for a rates rise of greater than 2%. There are a few things needed for local government reform in New Zealand. The first is the power of recall and recall elections. The USA has them, Canada has them, and the UK is getting them. This would allow citizens to remove ratbag mayors and councillors instead of waiting 3 years.” More

Postscript: Cameron Slater 13/1/15 Lusty, loopy, lascivious and now SLIMY Len

—

Dunedin City Council, glory days. What can possibly happen to Cull.

█ You might want to sponsor the dropkick…. anything to fix the Citifleet profile eh, Daaave —[McKerracher goes mad with PR opps]

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Sunday Star Times Business News: Woops DCC

### Stuff Online Last updated 11:52 27/01/2013
Auckland councillors reveal interests
By Rob Stock
The shutters of secrecy around the personal commercial interests of elected councillors and local board members are beginning to lift at the country’s largest local council. In May last year Auckland mayor Len Brown pledged to the Sunday Star-Times that Auckland Council would work towards the establishment of a register of pecuniary interests of councillors, something other major councils have long provided to their ratepayers.
Read more

—

Near the end of the article we love the reference to “the heavily indebted Dunedin City Council” being without a public register of pecuniary interests of councillors… Something “major councils have long provided to their ratepayers” (see Christchurch, Wellington, Tauranga, and now Auckland).

It’s the remainder of the sentence about Dunedin that really amuses, but let’s reproduce the paragraphs which implicate DCC.

In fact, the lack of registers at some councils – the heavily indebted Dunedin City Council was another without a public register – seems in direct contravention of the Local Government Act that requires councils to operate “in an open, transparent, and democratically accountable manner”.

Local Government New Zealand told the Government it believes the model set by MPs needed to apply to local councillors, arguing that it would “strengthen public confidence in public bodies like local government”, and it turned out that Auckland City Council was supporting the call.

Best we demand a register of Dunedin City councillors’ interests well before the October 2013 local body elections – make the request via public submissions on the Draft Annual Plan 2013/14, and DCC public forums.

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

—

The Auckland Plan

It’s the season for spatial plans!

### idealog.co.nz 20 Sep 2011 at 1:40pm
Auckland’s grand plan to build the ‘world’s most liveable city’
By Esther Goh
It’s a tall order, making Auckland’s the ‘world’s most liveable city’ by 2040, but we’ll never know if we don’t try. Mayor Len Brown today launched the draft Auckland Plan, accompanied by plans for the region’s economic development, the city centre and the waterfront, which outline initiatives for urban design and business growth to secure its future as a “globally competitive city”.

The proposals shape options for how JAFAs may live and work, and the transport services they will use. The report sets out five priorities:
• dramatically accelerating the prospects of children and young people
• committing to environmental action and green growth
• outstanding public transport within one network
• radically improving urban living and the built environment
• substantially lifting living standards for all Aucklanders

Click here to have your say on the plan.

Read more

****

ODT Online Tue, 20 Sep 2011
Grand vision for Auckland revealed
Auckland mayor Len Brown has today unveiled his vision to make it the world’s most liveable city by 2040. The 30-year plan looks to create a world-class city centre and waterfront with a city rail link, and to focus on improving education, health and housing. It also sets sets out how Auckland will absorb an additional one million people and build 400,000 houses to accommodate them in the next 30 years. APNZ
Read more

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr