DCC seeks feedback on representation arrangements

Dunedin City Council – Media Release
Feedback Sought on Local Government Representation

This item was published on 02 Apr 2015

An independent panel is reviewing the Dunedin City Council’s representation arrangements and wants to know what residents think.

The Representation Review Team is keen to know people’s views on the structure we have for electing representatives, whether we have the right number of councillors and how our wards and community boards meet the needs of our communities. It also asks whether we need guaranteed Māori representation and how we can encourage more people to vote in local elections.

Review Team Chair Associate Professor Janine Hayward says, “The review is an exciting opportunity to think about how the current representation arrangements are working for Dunedin residents. We look forward to hearing from as many people as possible.”

The DCC is made up of 14 councillors and a mayor. The mayor is voted for by all Dunedin residents while 11 councillors are elected by Central Ward residents, two are elected by Mosgiel Taieri residents and one is elected by residents in the Waikouaiti Coast-Chalmers Ward. Under this structure one councillor represents 8,869 residents.

The DCC also has six community boards, elected by their communities. In total, these boards represent a third of Dunedin’s population.

Councils are required by law to look at their representation arrangements on a regular basis. The Review Team has been meeting with community boards and other groups and also wants to hear from the public.

█ Residents are encouraged to fill in a short feedback form, which is available at http://www.dunedin.govt.nz/represent, or pick up a printed form from the DCC Customer Services Agency in the Civic Centre or from Dunedin Public Libraries and service centres. Feedback is due by 30 April.

█ There will also be a public meeting in the Dunningham Suite, City Library, at 7pm on Monday, 20 April where people are welcome to ask questions and pass on their views.

Public feedback will help the Review Team make recommendations to the Council in June/July. Formal public consultation will be held later in the year on a proposed structure to apply for the 2016 local elections.

The other Review Team members are Len Cook, Paulette Tamati-Elliffe and Mayor Dave Cull. Contact DCC on 477 4000.

DCC Link

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2013 MAPS
Waikouaiti Coast-Chalmers Ward Boundary map
Mosgiel Taieri Ward Boundary map
Central Ward Boundary Map

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Dunedin: Vandervis complaint lodged with police [update]

Updated post 25.12.13 at 12:56 a.m.

From ODT Archives (via Lee Vandervis):
Chris Morris. Local Body Elections 2013: How they rated
[councillors] Link 1 Link 2
[mayor] Link 1 Link 2
The article appeared in print and digital editions on Saturday 19 Sept 2013, and at ODT Online the next day. The full article is no longer available at ODT Online or Google cache.

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Received from Lee Vandervis.
Monday, 23 December 2013 4:11 p.m.

{Personal contact details and email addresses have been removed. Owing to limitations of the WordPress template minor changes have been made to the layout of the email for legibility. The italics are ours. Read the 2001 Local Electoral Act here. -Eds}

—

—— Forwarded Message

On 23/12/13 1:53 PM, “Debbie Porteous” [ODT] wrote:

Hi Lee, just arrived in for the day…have you had a chance to lay your complaint yet?
regards
Debbie.

.

From: Lee Vandervis
Date: Mon, 23 Dec 2013 16:03:20 +1300
To: Debbie Porteous [ODT]
Conversation: Morning Report
Subject: Re: Morning Report

Hi Debbie,

After 3 days of attempts to lodge a complaint with the Police I was finally able to lodge my complaint under the Electoral Act 2001 today against the ODT for their Councillors Ratings publication on the day that most voters received their voting papers.

In addition to the complaint which I have already forwarded, I today added the following Appendix detailing several of the alleged cases to answer.

CIB Detective Brett {Roberts} took detailed notes as well as my prepared material and copies of evidence and said he would write the case up for me to confirm in the next few days. From then it would be up to Police lawyers in Wellington to decide whether or not to proceed with a prosecution.

Let me know if further detail would be helpful.

Kind regards,
Lee

From: Lee Vandervis
Date: Mon, 23 Dec 2013 10:18:37 +1300
To: “ROBERTS, Alan (Brett)” [NZ Police]
Conversation: APPENDIX – Local Electoral Act 2001 breaches – Section 122 Case to Answer
Subject: APPENDIX – Local Electoral Act 2001 breaches – Section 122 Case to Answer

Dear Police.

There is a case to answer for the ODT because of the Councillor Ratings publication breach of several different provisions of section 122:

122 Interfering with or influencing voters

● (1) Every person commits an offence, and is liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding $5,000, who—

(a) interferes in any way with any person who is about to vote with the intention of influencing or advising that person as to how he or she should vote:

(b) prints, publishes, distributes, or delivers to any person (using any medium or means of communication) a document, paper, notice, or message, being or purporting to be in imitation of any voting document to be used at the election or poll that,—

—(i) in the case of an election, includes the name of a candidate or candidates, together with any direction or indication as to the candidate or candidates for whom any person should vote:

—(iii) in any way contains or suggests any such direction or indication or other matter likely to influence how any person votes:

.

█ (a) Was the timing of the ODT Councillor rating publication perfectly timed to influence voters?
YES it arrived in the mail on the Saturday 21st September when most voters would have just received their voting papers in the mail, either Thursday 19th or Friday 20th. It was delivered as near as could be timed to influence voting.
[18 Council candidates featured in ads and articles in this prime election newspaper (apart from the offending Councillor Rating pages) with the Mayor in 3 ads and Cr Wilson in 2.] The timing precluded any Councillor opportunity to effectively rebut what was claimed in the Councillor Ratings.
[see Cr Stevenson email 8/12/13 below…’to allow those reported on and members of the public some time to respond publically {sic}.’]

Was the publication intending to influence or advise voters?
YES­ it was advertised on the ODT’s biggest circulation day of the week along the top of the front page as ‘CHRIS MORRIS RATES DUNEDIN COUNCILLORS The best and the worst performers. p30-31’.
The two page spread also claimed authority, with the introduction lauding ‘reporter Chris Morris [who] has occupied a unique vantage point on the press bench, watching more of the debate unfold than any other member of the public’. [It fails to note that most Councillor work is in non-public meetings and in individual contacts for which an ODT reporter has no vantage point. This issues {sic} was highlighted verbally to me by Cr Hudson.]
The claimed authority in this context IS intention to influence. Add biased text and you have perverting influence.
The addition of a rating/10 IS intention to advise.
The ODT spread gave a white-washed glowing account of Mayor Cull over six columns [whose previous election campaign was partly financed by ODT owner Julian Smith and campaign managed by Julian Smith’s regular advertising consultant Tony Crick, who has continued to design and manage Mayor Cull’s subsequent GREATER DUNEDIN electoral campaigns], and gave me one column of
the most slanderous print I have ever read of any Councillor anywhere. All GREATER DUNEDIN candidates got scores of 6/10 or better. No Councillor with a score of less than 6/10 was re-elected.

█ (b) Did the ODT print, publish, distribute, or deliver to any person…a paper being or purporting to be in imitation of any voting document to be used at the election or poll that,

—(i) in the case of an election, includes the name of a candidate or candidates, together with any direction or indication as to the candidate or candidates for whom any person should vote?
YES The format of the ODT Rating publication closely followed the format of the official INSTRUCTIONS & CANDIDATE INFORMATION booklet that accompanied all voting papers. Like the booklet, each Councillor’s column led with the Councillor’s name, followed with a passport-sized photograph, and then followed with about 150 words of text [except for the Mayor’s extensive praise].
In the booklet however, the Candidate Information Handbook specifies that 150 word candidate profiles ‘must be true and accurate’. The ODT ratings were anything but true and accurate. They not only rated, but white-washed GREATER DUNEDIN candidates and pilloried others.

—(iii) in any way contains or suggests any such direction or indication or other matter likely to influence how any person votes?
YES. The rating/10 strongly suggested that those above 5/10 should be voted with a high STV ranking and those below 5/10 should not.
The dumping of two longstanding Councillors given 4/10 and 3/10 respectively proved the effectiveness of this influence, not just in the ratings but in the accompanying damning text. The ODT Ratings publication was intended to be an influencing version modelled on the official voter INSTRUCTIONS & CANDIDATE INFORMATION booklet, and one which gave voters a quick easy way of ‘knowing how to vote’. [eg see ODT letter to the Editor 7/9/13 ex Ann Coup – attached]

Dumped long-standing ex-Cr Hudson has been supportive of my making a criminal complaint under the Local Electoral Act. He has told me that the reason he could not effectively make a complaint himself was because it would be perceived and presented as ‘sour grapes’. He added that he wished that he too had cancelled his ODT advertising after the Chris Morris Councillor Ratings was published. There was no alternative print or TV media in Dunedin for either of us to advertise in as they are all owned by Allied Press Ltd.

Dumped long-standing Cr Stevenson was devastated by the Councillor Ratings publication. She initially verbally supported my draft complaint to the Electoral Commission:

From: Lee Vandervis
Sent: Tuesday, 22 October 2013 1:01 p.m.
To: Teresa Stevenson
Subject: Re: Positions of responsibility

Hi Teresa,

I found the whole skateboards debate to be a red herring and did not pay much attention to who said what.
Maybe if you check the videos on the DCC website you can get exact quotes.

Would you be interested in lending your name to my proposed Electoral Act complaint?

Cheers,
Lee

From: Teresa Stevenson
Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2013 15:12:19 +1300
To: Lee Vandervis
Subject: RE: Positions of responsibility

yep

…but has subsequently expressed the personal ‘wish to move on’.

From: Lee Vandervis
Sent: Friday, December 06, 2013 9:11 PM
To: Teresa Stevenson
Subject: Re: Draft Formal Complaint to the Electoral Commission – your suggestions would be much appreciated.

Hi Teresa,

The draft below is intended to go to the Electoral Commission and the Minister for Local Government, with other versions going to the Press Council and to nationwide media.
Paul Hudson has verbally confirmed his interest in adding his approval to this formal complaint.
I would be interested to know if you have any suggestions for improving this draft, and if you have any interest in adding your approval to it, as an obviously effected {sic} candidate.
My primary reason for making the complaint is to prevent the recurrence of what I believe to be a gross manipulation of our electoral process by our monopoly media.

Looking forward to any comment you may have.

Kind regards,
Lee

From: Teresa Stevenson
Date: Sun, 8 Dec 2013 10:48:23 +1300
To: Lee Vandervis, Teresa Stevenson
Subject: Re: Draft Formal Complaint to the Electoral Commission – your suggestions would be much appreciated.

I now wish to move on in my life, and do not want to re-raise this reporting which I personally felt was unbalanced, however I do not want the whole thing to be publically {sic} raised again.

I sincerely hope the Press Council and the NZ newspaper editors give some guidelines to how report card style reporting can be done better in the future, with any positive or negative grading being scored evenly on set factors, with more than one person doing the grading to avoid perceptions of bias, this should be easily achieved with the video recording of council meetings; report cards should also be published prior to the sending out of voting papers to allow those reported on and members of the public some time to respond publically {sic}. I have expressed my views with our ODT editor whom may consider these matters in future reporting.

I have experienced some positive press coverage from the ODT in the past, for example when I was first elected in 2004. So much so that there were private Councillor jokes about me sleeping with the ODT reporter.
However, after loudly voicing opposition to the unaffordable public funding of the proposed Stadium [ODT manager/owner was a founding member of ‘Our Stadium’ stadium promotion group] my ODT coverage became very negative in 2007 with a new DCC reporter, and I subsequently lost the 2007 election.
Subsequent ODT coverage since 2007 has been variable.
Mark Twain made a telling point when he said ‘Never pick a fight with a man who buys ink by the barrel.’

This complaint is not intended to pick a fight, but is a necessary attempt to delineate how far our monopoly media may go in influencing voters under the provisions of the Local Electoral Act 2001.
In publishing the Councillor Ratings on the day most voters received their papers, I submit that the ODT has [breached] the Act repeatedly and in many parts.

The Police prosecution that I am seeking is necessary to prevent a recurrence and foreshadowed extension of the Councillor Ratings to future Local Body Elections.
The pillars of Democracy on which our society stands have been eroded by the ODT Councillor Ratings publication, the 2013 Dunedin election has been skewed, and the make-up of the elected Councillors significantly and surprisingly changed.

I look forward to the Police acting appropriately with a decision to prosecute.
Cr Lee Vandervis

—— End of Forwarded Message

[ends]

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Related Post and Comments:
19.12.13 Dunedin: On the 2001 Local Electoral Act, and more [Complaint]
22.9.13 Newspaper errs . . . #Dunedin #Elections

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Dunedin: On the 2001 Local Electoral Act, and more [Complaint]

Received from Lee Vandervis.
Thursday, 19 December 2013 11:56 a.m.

{Copy of this complaint has been forwarded to Wilma McCorkindale (Fairfax News) and Debbie Porteous (ODT) who met Lee Vandervis this morning. The layout of the forwarded email has been slightly modified due to limitations of the WordPress template. Some personal contact details and email addresses have been removed or deactivated. -Eds}

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—— Forwarded Message

——– Original Message ——–
Subject: Formal Complaint to the Electoral Commission, and Hon Chris Tremain – Minister for Local Government
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2013 08:32:24 +1300
From: Lee Vandervis
To: feedback @ elections.org.nz, c.tremain @ ministers.govt.nz

Formal Complaint to the Electoral Commission 10/12/2013

Dear Electoral Commission and Hon Chris Tremain – Minister for Local Government.

I wish to make a formal complaint regarding a breach of section 197 of the NZ Electoral Act 1993 [Reprint as at 5 August 2013];

197 Interfering with or influencing voters

● (1) Every person commits an offence and shall be liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding $20,000 who at an election—

g) at any time on polling day before the close of the poll exhibits in or in view of any public place, or publishes, or distributes, or broadcasts,—

● (i) any statement advising or intended or likely to influence any elector as to the candidate or party for whom the elector should or should not vote;

Specifically under the Local Electoral Act 2001

Part 7 http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2001/0035/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM94784
Offences http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2001/0035/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM94784

122 Interfering with or influencing voters

● (1) Every person commits an offence, and is liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding $5,000, who—

(a) interferes in any way with any person who is about to vote with the intention of influencing or advising that person as to how he or she should vote:

(b) prints, publishes, distributes, or delivers to any person (using any medium or means of communication) a document, paper, notice, or message, being or purporting to be in imitation of any voting document to be used at the election or poll that,—

—(i) in the case of an election, includes the name of a candidate or candidates, together with any direction or indication as to the candidate or candidates for whom any person should vote:

—(ii) in the case of a poll, includes a statement or indication as to how any person should vote:

—(iii) in any way contains or suggests any such direction or indication or other matter likely to influence how any person votes:

(c) prints, publishes, or distributes any instruction on the method of marking the voting document that differs in any material way from the instructions required by this Act or any regulations made under this Act to accompany the voting document.

.

On the Saturday 21st of September 2013, the day on which the majority of Dunedin voters would have received their voting papers in the mail, the weekend edition of the Otago Daily Times printed an unprecedented 2 page “LOCAL BODY ELECTIONS HOW THEY RATED Opinion: Council reporter Chris Morris’ ratings of the council’s best and worst performers” which I allege was clearly designed to influence or advise voters as to how they should vote.
This ODT ratings of Councillors was authoritatively described in the introduction as being from “reporter Chris Morris [who] has occupied a unique vantage point on the press bench, watching more of the debate unfold than any other member of the public”. [It fails to note that much Councillor work is in non-public meetings and in individual contacts which an ODT reporter has no knowledge of.]
In this 2 page publication, the Mayor and each Councillor was named and photo shown followed by a column of text, in a format similar to the electoral information booklet accompanying voting papers, – additionally scored/10, and ‘Standing again’ noted. The text ‘opinion’ that accompanied each Councillor’s numerical/10 rating was heavily emotive, biased, and largely devoid of fact in many instances.
Further, I believe that the effect of this publication had a significant effect on voting to the extent that no Councillor that received a Chris Morris rating of less than 6/10 was re-elected. This despite two sitting Councillors of long experience, Cr Paul Hudson and Cr. Teresa Stevenson, looking likely to be re-elected but severely disadvantaged in this publication with damning comment and scores of 4/10 and 3/10 respectively. Cr. Hudson’s lost seat in particular was a surprise as he had a strong advertising campaign as well as a long uninterrupted Councillor history. Cr. Stevenson’s campaign was minimal, but always had been in the past and had still been enough to ensure uninterrupted re-election for many prior terms.
Although re-elected myself with a comfortable first interation selection, I believe that the ODT ratings publication severely impacted both my Mayoral and my Councillor vote, as a result of a slew of slanderous personal attacks in my single ratings column, contrasting strongly with Mayor Cull’s six columns of mostly misleading praise.

Mayor Cull’s praise included claiming he had delivered on promises of spending cuts, efficiencies, and greater transparency, when Mayor Cull’s Council had in fact increased debt by a record $176 million, failed to reduce bloated staff costs, and organised a secret caucus Liaison Committee which illegally prevented Councillors outside the Committee from attending. Mayor Cull also falsely claimed in his electoral pamphlet that his Council had saved ratepayers $100 million in interest costs by reducing the Stadium debt term from 40 years, when in fact it was Mayor Cull’s Council that had increased the term to 40 years in the first place.
The slanderous adjectives used by Chris Morris in my column included; “hogging…headlines [ironically this same reporter was responsible for most headlines], accused of getting facts wrong, grandstanding or a bullying tone, irate outburst, when angry as he often appears, his boiling shade of red is a sight to behold. Can sit like a storm cloud in council meetings, seemingly ready to erupt, walk out, or both.”…

The clear intention to influence and advise voters in this unprecedented 2 page slander of some candidates, and whitewash of others, could not be more plain.
The devastating result on the election outcome was also marked, as the ODT is the only local Dunedin daily newspaper, and the other local weekly and local TV channel are all owned by the same Allied Press Ltd.
With this ‘Council reporter ratings publication’, the ODT did not just ‘interfere in any way with any person who is about to vote’, the publication interfered in many ways with thousands of people who were about to vote, significantly altering the voting outcomes of the election. This on top of more subtle ODT bias in headlines, omissions, and comment regarding Council issues in the year leading up to the election.

I highlighted two such recent examples in my letter to the Editor of 22nd/9/2013 as follows;

From: Lee Vandervis
Date: Sun, 22 Sep 2013 12:01:03 +1200
To: EditorODT, Nicholas George S Smith [Allied Press], Julian Smith [Allied Press]
Cc: Chris Morris [ODT]
Conversation: A reporter’s ranting ratings! – Letter to the Editor
Subject: A reporter’s ranting ratings! – Letter to the Editor

Letter to the Editor.

A reporter’s ranting ratings! – on voting-papers-weekend!

Dear Editor,

With two pages of a reporter’s ranting ratings! on Councillors, the ODT has emotively screwed with voter preferences just as their voting papers arrive.
For the Mayoralty the ODT has again backed a TV-show-pony instead of a work-horse.

Where was Saturday’s headline ‘Cull falsely claims saving ratepayers $100+ million’ when the ODT knows he tried costing us that $100+ million in 2012 to disguise a double digit rates-rise?*
Where is the headline ‘Imaginative and informative election posters from Vandervis’? [photo here – see attached].

You have helped buy a Stadium that we can not pay for, neither capital nor operational, and failed the only candidate that told you so and still might have been able to pay for both.
You are sending our new CEO saviour in search of a saner situation.
You have, in this most important ODT issue of the triennium, taken the Dunedin disease of savaging style over substance to new debilitating depths.
You have permanently compromised any perceived impartiality of your primary DCC reporter, and warned off any decent future DCC candidates.

Winchell’s fate awaits you.

Cr. Clydesdale Vandervis

[“Walter Winchell – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Winchell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Winchell
You know what Winchell was doing at the end? Typing out mimeographed sheets with his column, handing them out on the corner. That’s how sad he got.”]

● “Mayor Dave Cull said he was “vehemently opposed” to repaying the debt over 40 years, because of the interest it would add to the bill, but would support it in the meantime to keep rates down.” [ODT 26 Jan 2012]

image.jpg

Feedback following the Councillor ratings publication was so severe from many different people that I decided to cancel all further advertising with the ODT on 29th Sept., 10 days before the close of voting as below.

From: Lee Vandervis
Date: Sun, 29 Sep 2013 23:07:22 +1300
To: Esther Lamb [Allied Press]
Cc: Nicholas George S Smith [Allied Press], Julian Smith [Allied Press]
Conversation: Lee Vandervis
Subject: Re: Lee Vandervis

Hi Esther,

Thank you for looking after me personally, but your Editors and Morris have undone any good there might have been in our ODT advertising by the obscene Sept 21st 2 pages of ‘Councillor ratings’ in which I have been slandered and Mayor Cull has been rolled in glitter.
Please cancel any further ads and send me a final account.

Kind regards,
Lee

4 Links to the ODT 21/9/2013 Councillor rating publication appear below;
• http://archive.odt.co.nz/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=T0RULzIwMTMvMDkvMjEjQXIwMzAwMA==&Mode=Gif&Locale=english
• http://archive.odt.co.nz/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=T0RULzIwMTMvMDkvMjEjQXIwMzAxNw==&Mode=Gif&Locale=english
• http://archive.odt.co.nz/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=T0RULzIwMTMvMDkvMjEjQXIwMzEwNA==&Mode=Gif&Locale=english
• http://archive.odt.co.nz/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=T0RULzIwMTMvMDkvMjEjQXIwMzEwMw==&Mode=Gif&Locale=english

I ask that you investigate this complaint, and if you discover that section 122 of the Local Electoral Act or other section has in fact been breached, that you move to appropriately censure the ODT in such a way as to publicly highlight the breach, and especially to prevent this or any other newspaper doing this to Candidates in future elections. The ODT has responded to comment on its Ratings of Candidates publication by saying that it will consider including Regional Council and Hospital Board Candidates in a similar Ratings publication for future elections.
The already too powerful influence of Allied Press’ monopoly print and TV media in Dunedin has become so extreme with this ODT Councillor Ratings paper coinciding with delivery of voting papers, that the outcome of the electoral process effectively rides on the shirt-tails of ODT published opinion.

Looking forward to your response,

Kind regards,
Cr. Lee Vandervis

—— End of Forwarded Message

[ends]

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Voting Closes on Saturday

Dunedin City Council – Media Release
Don’t Forget – Voting Closes on Saturday

This item was published on 07 Oct 2013.

It’s time to get those papers in – voting for the local body elections closes on Saturday.

If you haven’t already sent your voting papers in, now is the time to fill them out and return them. The elections are held by postal vote and papers must be mailed or delivered in time to be received by 12 noon on Election Day, Saturday 12 October.

Wednesday [was] the last recommended date for posting to ensure voting papers are received in time, but people can drop them in at the Civic Centre until Saturday.

The Electoral Officer for the Dunedin City Council, the Otago Regional Council and the Southern District Health Board, Pam Jordan, says if you have not received voting papers, you can cast a special vote.

The best way to do this now is to visit the Special Voting Booth in the Plaza Meeting Room in the Civic Centre. The booth is open Monday to Friday, 8.30am to 5pm, and also on Saturday morning.

Ms Jordan says fewer people have voted so far than at the same point in the past three elections. As of Friday, 18.65% of voting papers for this area had been returned, compared with 28.44% for the same period in 2010.

Daily voting paper returns can be seen at http://www.electionz.com/elections/lgereturns/ELT71DU13_returns.htm

Contact Electoral Officer, Dunedin City Council on 477 4000.

DCC Link

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Related Posts and Comments:
10.10.13 LGNZ: Local authority election results (advisory)
3.10.13 Exercise your right to VOTE

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

LGNZ: Local authority election results (advisory)

Received by Mayors, Chairs and Chief Executives
Tuesday, 8 October 2013 9:39 a.m.

Local Government New Zealand
MEDIA ADVISORY
Local authority election results – Saturday 12 October 2013

Voting for local authority elections closes at midday on Saturday 12 October. Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) will have a selection of election results available to the media from mid-afternoon on 12 October as follows:

[click to enlarge]

Information on past election results is currently available on LGNZ’s website.

****

Media contact and spokespeople
To request any of the above information or to arrange an interview, please contact Helen Mexted, LGNZ’s Director of Advocacy on 029 924 1221.

The following LGNZ spokespeople will be available to provide media commentary pre and post the election results:

Lawrence Yule – LGNZ President
Lawrence previously represented the Provincial Sector on the National Council. He has been Mayor of Hastings District since 2001, where he also won the honour of being Hastings District’s youngest Mayor. He continues to be at the forefront of not only district, but regional initiatives.

Malcolm Alexander – LGNZ Chief Executive
Malcolm has successfully led LGNZ through a significant period of recent change. He leads the organisation’s day-to-day management, relationships with its members and other stakeholders, and strategy and policy development. Malcolm was previously at Genesis Energy where he held the position of General Manager, Corporate Affairs. He was a member of the Board of the New Zealand Council for Infrastructure Development between 2008 and 2012 and was the Independent Chair of the Telecommunications Carriers’ Forum between 2002 and 2008.

****

About LGNZ and local government in New Zealand
Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) is the peak body representing New Zealand’s 78 local, regional and unitary authorities. LGNZ advocates for local democracy, develops local government policy, and promotes best practice and excellence in leadership, governance and service delivery. Through its work strengthening sector capability, LGNZ contributes to the economic success and vibrancy of communities and the nation.

The local government sector plays an important role. In addition to giving citizens a say in how their communities are run, councils own a broad range of community assets worth more than $120 billion. These include 90 per cent of New Zealand’s road network, the bulk of the country’s water and waste water networks, and libraries, recreation and community facilities. Council expenditure is approximately $8.5 billion dollars, representing approximately 4 per cent of Gross Domestic Product and 11 per cent of all public expenditure.

For more information visit: www.lgnz.co.nz

Download:
LGNZ Media Advisory Local Authority Elections Announcement
(PDF, 280 KB)

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Greater Dunedin caucus arrives

Outside the Civic Centre, George Street [photo supplied]

****

Update:

### ODT Online Wed, 2 Oct 2013
Grouping claim dismissed as lie
By Debbie Porteous
Accusations of lies are being thrown around on the issue of councillor groupings in the Dunedin local body elections.
A former council staff member says he saw members of Dunedin’s only ticket, Greater Dunedin, meet behind closed doors before council and committee meetings. But Greater Dunedin says that is not true because the group agreed not to caucus.
Mayoral candidate Pete George also says other councillors told him the group appears to meet and caucus, a suggestion Greater Dunedin member Mayor Dave Cull said during a recent television debate ”must be a lie”. Mr George is now blogging it is Mr Cull who ”seems to be deliberately misleading the public”, by not admitting the group meets or is, in fact, a party.
Mr Cull said the possibility of such accusations (caucusing and block voting) was behind members specifically agreeing never to meet.
Read more

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Mayoral candidates, listen up!

Turns out some of my best influences come at me via supermarket, after work. So here goes. Red flag.

IF you’re a mayoral candidate, REMEMBER . . .

You’re COMPETING for our Votes.

We’re not interested in playing with – or voting for – Siamese Twins.

DON’T sell short your competitive advantage by mentioning other mayoral candidates’ names in association with yours if you’re serious about winning the Dunedin mayoralty. This is a one horse race. There’s only one winner.

Why nullify your election hoardings and posters by raising Brand Awareness of daaave liability cull and greater debt dunedin – familiarity breeds contempt, and votes.

DON’T Prompt The Voters away from YOU.
IT’S YOU – not them.

No cosying.

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Mayoral Candidates 2013. Left to right (top) Hilary Calvert, Dave Cull, Kevin Dwyer, (middle) Pete George, Aaron Hawkins, Olivier Lequeux, (bottom) Steve McGregor, Lee Vandervis, Andrew Whiley

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Related Post [see all Council candidate names and profiles]:
16.8.13 DCC nominations —All the mops, brooms and feather dusters

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr | in the interests of Health and Safety in the social and built environment at Dunedin

Broadcast Notice: [RNZ National] Dunedin Local Body Elections

Received.
Friday, 13 September 2013 2:31 p.m.

National Radio is concentrating on the Dunedin Local Body Elections this Sunday at 5:30 PM.

Radio New Zealand National
Sunday 15 September 2013
4 ’til 8 with Katrina Batten
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/4til8
A selection of special interest programmes, including:

5:32 Outspoken: Current affairs presented by some of RNZ’s most experienced correspondents
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/outspoken

Audio files —
Outspoken for 15 September 2013 ( 27′ 55″ )
17:35 Steve Wilde continues his preview of the approaching local body elections with a close-up look at the metropolitan centres. This time it’s Dunedin… the main issues and what the voters are thinking.
Audio | Downloads: Ogg MP3

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Image: spectrum.ieee.org – Radio boombox reimaged by Whatifdunedin

Residents’ dissatisfaction (2013) with elected council and mayor —increase!

2013 Residents’ Opinion Survey —DCC webpage
● Residents’ Opinion Survey 2013 Report (PDF, 3.1 MB)
● Residents’ Opinion Survey 2013 Summary (PDF, 261.4 KB)

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Comment received.

Calvin Oaten
Submitted on 2013/09/04 at 8:11 pm

A bit of a perusal of the survey outcomes is a bit of an upturn in almost all categories since 2012. Excuse the cynicism but could this possibly be due to it being election year? I did notice one category which hasn’t been mentioned in the media, or anywhere else for that matter. But it is there in the summary and it is the fact that ‘satisfaction with the elected council and mayor’ is way down on last year. Funny that.

Satisfaction with Council Activities (Summary, page 4)
[click to enlarge]

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Meanwhile, only the good news via DCC Spooks and Allied Press…

### ODT Online Sun, 8 Sep 2013
Satisfaction may hit vote
By Dan Hutchinson – The Star
The Dunedin City Council’s just-released resident opinion survey suggests its residents are a relatively satisfied bunch – but what do the results suggest for democracy? It appears most Dunedin residents are satisfied with their council but that might not necessarily be a good thing with an election less than three weeks away. The Dunedin City Council Resident Opinion Survey released this week shows 54% of the 1212 people surveyed were satisfied with the council’s performance – up from 39% last year.
Associate Professor Janine Hayward, of the University of Otago’s Department of Politics, said high satisfaction levels were one of two main reasons for low voter turnout at elections. […] She said the other main reason was when people felt they could not change anything because they did not like the status quo.
The possible lack of interest in local government was highlighted again on Monday [last] week when the council’s six-weekly public forum was cancelled because no-one wanted to speak.
Read more

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Related Posts and Comments:
22.8.13 DCC website: Candidate profiles
16.8.13 DCC nominations —All the mops, brooms and feather dusters

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Stadium: Accountability, paper trail leads unavoidably to NEWS

Stadium under construction [photo via espnscrum.com]

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Comments received.

Bev Butler
Submitted on 2013/07/30 at 2:25 pm

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/8981153/Phone-records-given-to-inquiry
Parliament’s speaker, David Carter:
“I view any actions that may put at risk journalists’ ability to report very seriously.”

Both Sir Eion Edgar and Sir Julian Smith have some explaining to do as to their “actions” in preventing the reporting of the information contained in the press release below which one of the ODT reporters contacted me about on 3 July 2013, asked me questions, then nothing being published in the ODT.

PRESS RELEASE
“Philanthropist” reneges on promised $1m donation
Full independent enquiry sought

The deceptions surrounding the Forsyth Barr Stadium continue to be revealed by official documents released on 11 June 2013.

The public, on many occasions raised doubts that the promises of private funding for construction of the stadium, had been met, but were assured by Mr Malcolm Farry, Chair of the Carisbrook Stadium Trust as reported in NBR and ODT 2007 that in fact several substantial donations had been promised. Indeed he went so far to tell the public that he had promises of three individual donations of $1 million each to be put to the costs of construction. Sir Eion Edgar also confirmed in DScene in 2009 that he would be making a donation of $1m.

That, as has now been revealed officially, was untrue.

It was also untrue as Mr Farry claimed when leading the project, that advance ticket or product sales revenue could be counted as construction capital. This was nothing other, as many ratepayers pointed out, simply advance operational revenue which could not be charged in the future. While Mr Farry denied this, the PricewaterhouseCoopers investigation found that there was little or no capital raised from ‘private funding’ for construction.

The relevance of this should not be lost when the evidence supplied to the High Court in Christchurch by the Carisbrook Stadium Trust through the DCC also stated that substantial private donations had been made for construction. At the time of the Stop The Stadium court case in April 2009, Mr Farry had stated publicly that more than $30m of the required $45m had already been contracted in private funding for construction of the stadium. It appears that evidence in the High Court case was also not truthful.

The role played by Forsyth Barr and its Chair, Sir Eion Edgar also come directly under a brighter spotlight from the release of the documentation. Sir Eion Edgar promised a substantial donation of $1m as reported in DScene 2009, but again this has proven not to be true. But this lack of philanthropy also extended to an obscuring of the facts surrounding the naming rights of the stadium. Despite Sir Eion Edgar claiming in the National Business Review (29/01/09) that a “substantial cheque” had been written for these rights, and The Marketing Bureau commissioned by the CST reporting to council the naming rights were worth $10m, the fact was that instead the stadium was named after his company for a period of two and a half years before any revenue was received. It has already been reported in the media that the naming rights were no more than $5m. An upfront substantial sum in advance reported in PwC peer reviews was somehow altered to a much lesser sum in monthly arrears payments which didn’t begin until late 2011.

Sir Edgar also had a significant role as President in his connections with the Otago Rugby Football Union when a fundraising function for the ORFU in August 2011 at the new Forsyth Barr Stadium defaulted in its payments to the Dunedin City Council leaving ratepayers to pick up the tab for booze, food, hireage and cleaning while the ORFU pocketed the gross income less a substantial organisational fee paid to the wife of the Deputy Chair of the ORFU, Laurie Mains.

While the PwC investigation was not intended to be a forensic audit of all financial matters surrounding the stadium, sufficient grounds now exist for such a full independent investigation to be carried out, and it is difficult to see just why this should be resisted unless some have got matters to try and continue to conceal. Doubts have also been expressed over the laxity of the billing and payment processes whereby blanket monthly CST accounts with no detail were passed for payment by the then CEO of the Dunedin City Council, Jim Harland, and there remains uncertainty over the validity of many of the expenses and other monies claimed for and paid by the ratepayers of the City.

[Response 1]

Elizabeth
Submitted on 2013/07/30 at 2:46 pm

Bev, quite apart from the content of the Press Release, are you saying the ODT journalist who contacted you about the release was lined up to do a story based on the content of the press release? Or that the editorial team did not support the reporter and canned the story as filed? Or for the newspaper’s own reasons there was never a story?! In other words, something of a spying mission took place?

Media can choose whether or not to cite the content of press releases in whole or in part.

Should a newspaper decline to reference a press release in its general news coverage, surely that leaves the writers of the release free to pay for an advertising statement. This is exactly what has been required with The Press in Christchurch over the fight to restore the Christ Church Cathedral – paid advertising by Cathedral advocates tied to education of the Press editor underlining the editorial bias which has run to the benefit of the Bishop and the CPT. We consider The Press’s stance deliberate to force use of paid advertising. The Press has softened since being SPOKEN TO.

****

[Response 2]

Russell Garbutt
Submitted on 2013/07/30 at 8:25 pm

Bev’s post needs as wide a circulation as possible and I would urge any readers to pass on the URL of this post to as many of their friends as possible, but it is as sure as God made little green apples, that the ODT will neither investigate nor publish anything that is detrimental to the interests of those that have certain influence and connections. I wonder if Sir Julian would be willing to show his phone records? Particularly those from the Central Otago region?

All of the material that Bev mentions regarding the naming rights is backed up by documentation – in fact so much of what Bev is talking about is now being played out in National politics with the Henry inquiry and Vance’s phone records. The story has to be dragged out before it is grudgingly admitted that a great wrong was done. And even then the perpetrators can’t get their story straight.

This is what I mean by accountability in many ways. Many have claimed that deceit, lies and obfuscation were just part of the normal business around the CST, DCC, ORFU and associated parties and it has also been suggested that this culture of deceit and lies extended to the High Court. Who am I to argue that this was not the case? But the same people’s names turn up time and time again. Reported are Farry, who continues to harangue from the side-lines, Edgar promising much and apparently confused between what is a donation and what is part of a payment for a sweetheart deal with the organisation of which he was part, or Harland, in the middle authorising payments on behalf of the ratepayers to the CST – a private Trust that remains a closed window.

And who is going to push for exposure of all the facts? We should be forever grateful for Bev’s assiduous work in prying out the necessary documentation and proof of what many have alleged for years. I can only hope that Bev Butler is, within the near future, able to ensure that any serious wrong-doing by those connected with the greatest waste of ratepayer funds, is put forward in a high profile way.

And if it can be shown in a separate jurisdiction that the allegations are well-founded – and I’m sure it can by the documentation that exists in private and on public record, then hopefully these people will be made accountable. But I’m not holding my breath.

****

[Response 3]

Bev Butler
Submitted on 2013/07/30 at 10:11 pm

Elizabeth, to now answer your questions – just briefly for now.
“The Edgar Story” was first published on Stuff News on Wednesday 3 July 2013. About an hour later the story was “pulled”.
Rarely does a story get “pulled” – it is generally due to major factual errors or a threat of defamation. As I know the information was correct then I assumed the latter.
I wrote to Fairfax management then emailed Forsyth Barr/Edgar’s lawyers. Two days later the story was published in The Mirror – a Central Otago Fairfax publication.
Interestingly, also on Wednesday 3 July an ODT reporter contacted me, questioning me about the Stuff News item. The reporter wanted to know who else I had sent the press release to. At the time I thought this was unusual – what did that have to do with reporting the news? I suspected that someone was wanting to do damage control behind the scenes. A week later I then heard from a good source that this was the case.
What really concerns me, apart from the serious issues in the press release, is the behind-the-scenes manipulation of ‘freedom of the press’. Dunedin citizens are no longer able to rely on the local media for local news. The damage done by this behind-the-scenes manipulation is dangerous. How this can be allowed to happen in a democratic society should be a concern for all in Dunedin. I don’t blame the reporter as he/she would have been instructed to question me.

[ends]

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Related Posts and Comments:
18.7.13 ODT won’t touch Fairfax story
3.7.13 [Pulled!] Call for Dunedin stadium cash
24.12.12 A Christmas Tale
7.6.12 Stadium: Forsyth Barr naming rights
6.7.09 Eion Edgar on ‘stadium haters’

ODT Online:
11.5.12 $100m hotel for Dunedin waterfront [Edgar support]
11.5.12 Harbour hotel proposed for Dunedin

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

ODT won’t touch Fairfax story

Supposing Sir E rang Sir J. What did they talk about. Parties?

#bookmark page 1
#bookmark page 2

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### DScene 13 May 2009
The Insider: Big questions answered
Mr Generous isn’t slowing down
Winter Games NZ chairman Eion Edgar | Interviewed by Ryan Keen
COMMUNITY-MINDED Queenstown-based businessman Eion Edgar, who retired as New Zealand Olympic Committee president last week and left a $1 million donation, on his support for knighthoods, backing Blis and why he’s not slowing down. #bookmark page 9

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Related Posts and Comments:
10.7.13 Stadium: Edgar will honour $1M personal pledge to project
3.7.13 [Pulled!] Call for Dunedin stadium cash
24.12.12 A Christmas Tale
7.6.12 Stadium: Forsyth Barr naming rights
6.7.09 Eion Edgar on ‘stadium haters’

ODT Online:
11.5.12 $100m hotel for Dunedin waterfront [Edgar support]
11.5.12 Harbour hotel proposed for Dunedin

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Dunedin, ‘small government’ —Calvert

Previous exploits, Hilary Calvert with ACT’s Rodney Hide [Photo: Stuff]

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### ODT Online Wed, 17 Jul 2013
City where the real world meets the hypothetical
By Hilary Calvert
OPINION We heard through the Otago Daily Times that Dunedin must prepare for life in a changing world through an energy plan. Apparently, according to the Dunedin City Council, we need a plan to boost our ability to adapt to future change and to take advantage of economic opportunities in a changing energy context. We also must save costs and enhance quality of life resulting from energy-efficient improvements and reduce our climate change and environmental effects.
Currently, our debt is unsustainable, and it is likely, with the good job Paul Orders has been doing, we have reduced spending as much as we usefully can without making some hard decisions. We have high debt, rates running at much more than the CPI increase, which funds many households, and little understanding, it would appear, of the economic reality within which we are operating.

The council does not have capital sitting around looking for inspirational or aspirational projects to back.

Throughout New Zealand, a new group has been formed called Affordablecity. The basic idea of Affordablecity is that each candidate, or each local party with these ideas, agrees to support five core principles:

1. Lower rates.
2. Balanced budgets.
3. Making housing affordable.
4. Spending only on the basics.
5. Restoring private property rights.

They are also focused on core activities of councils, as described in section 11A of the Local Government Act; namely infrastructure, public transport, sewage, avoidance or mitigation of natural hazards, and libraries, museums reserves etc.
Read more

● Hilary Calvert is a Dunedin resident with an interest in small government.

[Does she mean ‘local government’? But hey! there’s nothing small about Dunedin, right? We’re “punching above our weight”, say the Old Boys.]

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Hudson, DCC (ex DCHL)

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Postscript: A selection of ODT articles.–
2.11.11 Council dumps directors
20.9.11 City council’s golden geese [editorial]
17.9.11 Hudson’s head still on block
3.8.11 Opinion: Duplication cost for council companies [Hudson earns total of $116,026 from five boards]
1.8.11 Oh what a tangled web they wove… [Opinion: Russell Garbutt]
31.5.11 Councillor badly hurt stopping runaway shopping trolley
30.4.10 Restaurant lease cost council $360,000

SFO investigates Taupo District Council

### stuff.co.nz Last updated 16:49 17/06/2013
SFO investigates Taupo District Council
By Mike Watson – Waikato Times
The Serious Fraud Office has launched an investigation into alleged fraud at the Taupo District Council but would not reveal the reason for the inquiry. SFO acting chief executive Simon McArley today confirmed the agency was investigating the council after a complaint had been lodged.
“We have received complaints in matters relating to Taupo District Council,” Mr McArley said. “The SFO is continuing its investigation of those matters but is unable to provide any further detail in relation to them at this time.”
Stuff Link

****

### rotoruadailypost.co.nz 18 Jun 2013 11:45 AM Updated: 1:25 PM
Update: SFO investigating Taupo District Council
By Laurilee McMichael
Taupo Mayor Rick Cooper says he’s aghast, shattered and stunned at news the Taupo District Council is being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office. Mr Cooper said he doesn’t know what the alleged fraud is in relation to or who it involves but said it’s definitely not him. However he’s challenging whoever made the complaint or complaints to “put up or shut up” and notes that there is a local government election in October. He believes there’s a vendetta against the council and that people are trying to manipulate public opinion.

Mr Cooper and the Taupo district councillors were informed last week the SFO had launched an investigation but were given no more detail.

The SFO focuses on serious or complex fraud in which there are multiple victims, the sum of money lost exceeds $2 million, or has significant legal or financial complexity beyond the resources of most other law enforcement agencies. Its brief includes bribery and corruption crimes involving public officials.
Read more

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Bobbling off . . . #Democracy #Dunedin #Stadium

### NZ Herald 5:30 AM Tuesday Jun 18, 2013
Bob Jones: It’s vote-and-hope for competence at top
By Bob Jones
OPINION There was a time when the mayoralty of our major cities commanded considerable prestige as a cap on a successful professional or commercial career. History reveals many important mayors of an earlier age. Sadly no longer. Instead, everywhere there are mayors and councillors devoid of even the faintest credentials for any public office. Indeed, some have never had a job, suggesting they’re financially motivated. Given perks such as the sister cities silliness and ratepayer-funded jaunts to them, free cars, telephones, etc, being mayor is quite appealing for the unaccomplished.

Dunedin is unique as it’s been well served by competent mayors, evidenced by the last half dozen being repeatedly re-elected, in most cases for three terms, before retiring.

I suspect voters are conscious of that as I’ve observed how they repeatedly backlash against the most heavily advertised mayoral candidates, as if suspicious of such hunger for the office. We can only speculate why obvious potential candidates now shy away, but cannot condemn those who do stand, humdrum though they may be. Someone must or we’ll have no democracy.
Read more

—

Meanwhile at ODT Online:

“Mr Cull has allowed himself to be captured by the town hall bureaucrats and the self-interest groups in exactly the same way as his predecessors. The Sir Humphreys of this world are clearly alive and well at the Civic Centre.” —Moore1967

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Dunedin mayoralty and the Q-town heavies

Update 16.8.13
The full nominations list is published today at
DCC nominations —All the mops, brooms and feather dusters

Sir and Friends brought you the stadium and DCC’s MASSIVE consolidated debt.

How much more control do you want to give them ???

### ODT Online Wed, 22 May 2013
Mayoral contest heats up
By Chris Morris
Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull faces a political challenge – possibly from all sides – as the race for the city’s robe and chains later this year begins to heat up.
Queenstown businessman and philanthropist Sir Eion Edgar yesterday confirmed he was behind a push to resurrect a Citizens Association-style group that could support candidates in October’s local body elections.
The idea had been raised with potential backers in Dunedin and, if confirmed, could see the group’s mayoral or council candidates offered financial support by the group, including from interested businessmen, he said. Sir Eion said he was prepared to help finance the right candidates’ campaigns himself, saying the city needed ”good leadership”.
Read more

[ODT Graphic]

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Local body elections: who will explain DCC’s books . . .

Received from Hype O’Thermia
Monday, 22 April 2013 3:37 a.m.

“In the boardroom, [Ngai Tahu chairman Mark] Solomon favours plain speaking. He tells a story about trying to get his head around the accounting terms used in Ngai Tahu’s financial statements, terms like EVA (economic value added) and WACC (weighted average cost of capital).

To improve understanding of such terms he asked for an explanatory document to be created and issued that with the report to iwi. It worked. Recently at one meeting an 84-year-old woman stood and challenged Solomon, arguing Ngai Tahu’s WACC was 1 per cent too low.”

### stuff.co.nz Last updated 05:00 21/04/2013
Business
The wisdom of Solomon
By Rob O’Neill – Sunday Star Times
After 15 years on the board, the chairman of Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu, Sir Mark Solomon, is willing to retire, but he will stay on for the long haul if he can’t find the right successor to lead the tribal council. Solomon, knighted in the 2013 New Year’s honours list for services to Maori and business, said, as with any organisation, there were people who put their own interests first and people who put the collective interest first. In Ngai Tahu terms he calls these “I Tahu” and “We Tahu”. “I’ve always stood in the middle of the ‘we’ camp,” he told an Institute of Directors conference in Auckland last week. “It always seems to me that politics is about ‘I’ versus ‘we’.” Whoever takes on his job will have to also be a “we” person, he said. Read more

Wouldn’t it be great if “Greater Dunedin’s” pre-election commitment to transparency had resulted in something like this, to bust asunder some of the tools used in official obfuscation!

Imagine if such an explanatory document had been distributed to ratepayers instead of Rodney’s puff-mag, and not only given to councillors but read aloud, attendance compulsory, security staff present to monitor for sleepiness and texty-wexing lovey-dove or playing angry birds under the table.

[ends]

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Image: Mark Solomon via stuff.co.nz

DCC binge spending alert: Proposed South Dunedin cycle network

UPDATED POST 27.2.13
If there is no [NZTA] subsidy, the cost will be $70.6 million.
See further comment by JimmyJones based on statements in DCC annual plans.

Comment received.

JimmyJones
Submitted on 2013/02/24 at 5:55 pm

That could be, Hype O’Thermia. Perhaps the intracranial aphids explain why they keep getting their financial estimates so badly wrong.
It seems to me that the Team has been working on this for a few years and waiting for a few cycling deaths to help with the promotion of their ideas. The amount of publicity given to these deaths has been far beyond what is typical for previous cycling deaths and very different to the average pedestrian and motor vehicle death. No doubt the Team has good links with the ODT and it helps to have control of the $5 million Spin-doctor Machine. One of those is perfect for persuading the councillors that your ideological brain-explosions won’t cost much and that everyone will like them eventually.
As Elizabeth mentioned, election success can be greatly enhanced by the timing of a cycle-way media promotion, if this is part of your policy. There need not be collusion for this to happen: the Rosebud Team are very focused on their goals and know the value of getting the best people elected that share their ideology. It’s symbiotic self interest, and (probably) not corruption. The good of the Team is the important thing, far more important than the City and the People.

[ends]

Visit the discussion on this thread:
DCC: Council meeting agenda and reports for 25 February 2013

Report – Council – 25/02/2013 (PDF, 1.5 MB)
South Dunedin Cycle Network

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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

Who? 2010 electioneering

References supplied.

Blog entry: Dave Cull for Dunedin City Mayor
Monday, August 23, 2010 at 2:09 PM
TAKING OUR FUTURE BACK
By Dave Cull

Dunedin is wonderful city, with a fantastic future. But right now that future is vulnerable: vulnerable economically, environmentally and socially. Dunedin’s community has never been more disillusioned with how Council makes decisions, how it listens, or not, to the community, how Council takes responsibility, or not, for major spending decisions with long-term consequences. These are consequences that include maxing out Councils [sic] and Council company debt, so that the companies may not be able to pay expected dividends to the ratepayers in the next few years! It is that bad.

The challenges ahead are considerable. But we can achieve that fantastic future. We have to. We can achieve it if we replace secrecy with transparent processes and provide responsible leadership that listens and is up-front with the community about debt and costs. If we do that we can turn disillusion into a shared and inclusive vision for the city.

So imagine what YOU want Dunedin to be like in 20 years.

Imagine Dunedin with:
• a thriving economy featuring high value jobs and businesses that keep families living here
• suburbs of well-built, healthy houses
• streets of beautiful, rejuvenated heritage buildings being put to productive use
• renewable resources being utilized for lower cost energy.
• measures already taken to address climate change and peak oil
• well maintained civic amenities not saddled by a mountain of debt that ratepayers have to repay
• top notch infrastructure including comprehensive Broadband coverage everywhere
• a smooth coordinated public transport system and cycle and pedestrian network
• an accessible and well-protected surrounding environment full of nature’s treasures

Previous Councils and this current one, have not tried to imagine such a future and not planned to achieve it. They have ticked the boxes of bland Council vision statements, reacted to pet ideas dished up by special interest groups, and lurched from one to the next, piling a huge debt on all our shoulders in the process. At the same time some of our suburbs are mouldering from neglect; our digital infrastructure is falling behind other NZ communities; jobs are ebbing away and families are leaving for greener pastures. I and my team want to help turn that all around.
Read more

****

During the 2010 Dunedin Mayoral race the local newspaper ran this:

### ODT Online Tue, 7 Sep 2010
Mayoral Profile: Dave Cull
By David Loughrey
Dunedin city councillor Dave Cull is about to end his first term on the local authority, and has put his hand up for the council’s top job. With nine candidates, including himself, on his Greater Dunedin ticket, success could see him heading a group with a majority, on a council more recently made up of 15 independents. But he says that would be a good thing for a city that needs a “collegial” approach to reining in debt, and attracting business and people to Dunedin.

Dave Cull
Age: 60.
Family/marital status: Married, two daughters.
Occupation: Writer.
Council experience: One term as councillor.
Running for: Mayor and council.

Why are you standing?
I’m standing because when I put my hand up for council in 2007, I realised it was going to be something I was either going to be in for the long haul or not, so I’m in it for the long haul.
I’m standing for the mayoralty because I see the need for far more engaging and inclusive leadership than is being shown at the moment.

Tell me then, how you would go about engaging and including.
Well I think the context is that the current council and mayor …

Of which you’re one …
… of which I’m one, but the majority has not engaged genuinely, has not listened genuinely to the public, and has, worse than that, not got a cohesive, connected view of the projects the council is involved in. They tend to be isolated from one another, and the impact on one another is not fully appreciated till the negatives hit, I suppose. So I see a need for developing a much more future-focused vision for the city that looks at everything in a connected way.
Read more

****

Blog entry: Dave Cull for Dunedin City Mayor
Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 2:02 PM
Ratepayers Association Questionnaire
By Dave Cull

The Greater Dunedin Team Answers Ratepayers Association Questions.

Greater Dunedin candidates declined to answer the Ratepayers Assoc questionnaire, the answers to which are to be published in D-Scene. Framed as either/or questions, the requested yes/no answers would oversimplify the issues with many of the questions. More importantly Ratepayers chairperson Lyndon Weggery acknowledged the Association would edit and “analyse” longer answers and distribute the results privately to Ratepayers Association and ex-Stop the Stadium members. We have no confidence that would be done in good faith. Mr Weggery (also on the committee of ex-STS) has signed STS newsletters containing untrue claims and misrepresentations about Greater Dunedin mayoral candidate Dave Cull’s views on the new stadium, and endorsing another candidate. Dishonesty and partisan commentary are incompatible with a purportedly independent survey.

However all the Greater Dunedin team recognise voters’ interest in our views and their right to hear them expressed publicly. We wholeheartedly promote transparency and also believe our views and positions on most subjects, while diverse, probably resonate with most of the membership of both the Ratepayers Association and what was Stop the Stadium. To that end we have each fully answered the questions posed by the ratepayers Association and posted them on our website: http://www.greaterdunedin.co.nz/. We encourage readers to read them there.
Greater Dunedin’s aim is to engage with and serve the interests and views of the whole Dunedin community. We welcome feedback, ideas, concerns and comments from all.

Following are the Ratepayers Association questions and my answers.
Continues at greaterdunedin.blogspot

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

DCC Draft Annual Plan 2013/14 for consultation #RIOTmaterial

Email received from Lee Vandervis this evening.

My overview regarding the Annual Plan that has gone out for consultation today is that little has changed.

Rates rises continue to be disguised, first by getting DCHL to borrow up to $23 million on our account, continuing to take more than policy allows from the Waipori Fund [proposed relaxing Waipori rules to justify], continued significant underspending on drains, and now buying $3 million in paid-up share capital of DVML – yet another multi-million dollar gift to bail out overspent Stadium operations.

The official result – the long heralded 4% rates rise.

I believe the real rates rise to be somewhere between 25% and 30%, as the DCC continues to amass all kinds of liabilities and debt that will have to be paid for in the future. CEO Paul Orders has made real gains finding significant DCC staff efficiencies, but most are simply going to bail out Stadium operational inefficiencies.

Stadium annual drains on the ratepayer now include:
● $1,666,000 rates subsidy via a ‘Stadium Differential’ [LTP 2013/14 – 2021/22 p8]
● $750,000 annual ‘Stadium Community Access’ fund
● $725,000 ‘Stadium Capital Repayment’ fund for each of the next 4 years
● Annual $400,000 ‘Stadium Event Attraction’ fund.

The Dunedin City Council is now going to buy the events that the Stadium was supposed to attract by itself. These further Stadium subsidies will only prolong the currently unaffordable wasteful Stadium operations, and entrench the directorships, fat contracts, and rugby cronyism that plague current Stadium costs.

If anyone can think of any other type of ‘fund’ that might possibly go to the Stadium please don’t tell the DCC or we will shortly be paying that annually too.

From an email I sent to senior staff and the Mayor last Monday:
“I have been uncomfortable with the timing and presentation advantages enjoyed by DVML in being perfectly positioned to come into our workshop and present and pluck us for millions yet again, but I accept that their issues needed to be addressed.”

Many Annual Plan issues have not been addressed but they have been bought into.

The predetermined Plan has just happened again.

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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

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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.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

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Submission to DCC draft long term plan (1)

Copy of submission received from Jeff Dickie, Dunedin
Date: Wednesday, 9 May 2012, 11:22 AM

I have in the past made numerous submissions calling for Council to “recognize a problem before we have a crisis”. We now have that crisis.

I have invested substantially in Dunedin. I now hold very grave fears for the city’s future and that of my 5 children, for whom I’d like to at least have an option of choosing to live here.

Under the previous Chin/Harland administration we saw financial incompetence on an unprecedented scale, coupled with a cynical disregard for democracy and the submission process. Secrecy and preset agendas marked this Bejing-style excuse for democracy. It was precisely this that allowed the stadium project to proceed. Had ratepayers been honestly informed from the outset, as to the true cost, as to the outrageous land/lease purchases and to the negligence in contracting an anchor tenant, it is highly unlikely indeed we would be faced with the now ludicrous possibility of ratepayers directly funding professional rugby.

In the last election I, along with many others, voted for a change to openness and honesty.

Dave Cull has inherited a very difficult situation and unfortunately has also inherited several of the “old guard” who have created the current mess. The lunacy of the stadium project was all too obvious from the outset. It has been an enormous flop and all the spin and smoke and mirrors cannot hide the fact that it has had zero income and is by any standards, a failure.

Debt and elections

### ODT Online Sat, 28 Aug 2010
Judgement day looms on DCC debt
By David Loughrey
In six weeks, Dunedin residents will have the opportunity to have their say on the city’s future at the 2010 local government elections. Dunedin City Council reporter David Loughrey looks at the council’s record in the last triennium, considers the issues that will dominate the election, and asks: Does the council listens to its citizens?

* Voting patterns emerge

The city’s roofed stadium was the big issue at the last election, but with building of the facility now well advanced, that debate has evolved.

Instead of the focusing on a “yes” or “no” for the stadium, campaigns begun by challengers to the incumbents have usually included criticism of the debt created by the stadium and other multimillion-dollar projects.

Read more

Post by Elizabeth Kerr

In defence of STV

“or How I learned to stop living the past and learned to love the vote.”

This posting is in response to the submission of Jeremy Belcher and Calvin Oaten to the DCC Electoral Review Committee, in February 2005, in which they criticise “Meeks NZ STV” and put forward their own Belcher/Oaten Method, which they claim is better than STV in several ways. A comment from Mr Oaten (with a link to the submission) was posted by Elizabeth Kerr on 22 August.

In his submission, Mr Oaten attacks single-seat STV, on the basis that it is the second preference votes of the least successful candidates that determine the outcome, and that the second preference votes of the highest polling candidates play no part in determining the final result. He calls this a “travesty of representation”.

What he fails to understand is that, under STV (in both the single- and multi-seat cases), second and subsequent preferences are merely contingency choices only; they are not additional votes having the same value (the value of unity) as first-preference votes. The system is called the single transferable vote for a reason – everyone has just one vote, which is transferable if necessary. If second preferences given for all the candidates were taken into account, i.e. if each voter had two votes, of equal value, even though only one vacancy was being filled (that were then merely tallied and the candidate with the highest combined total of first and second preferences was declared the winner), many voters would discover, too late, that their second preferences had served only to help defeat the candidate they had actually voted for, being the candidate for whom they had given their first preference. Now that would be a travesty of representation.

Mr Oaten then launches into multi-seat STV, again not realising that second and subsequent preferences are contingency choices only, not additional votes. He is critical of the fact that, in a three-seat ward, voters do not have three votes (of equal value) under STV, completely overlooking the reason why – if voters had three votes, in a worst-case scenario, the largest minority grouping (perhaps comprising only 35% of all voters), could use their three votes to elect the three candidates they wanted, with the remaining 65% of voters getting nothing. Clearly, Mr Oaten wants STV to, in effect, be the system it replaced – multiple-FPP.

Mr Oaten proposes his Belcher-Oaten Method, that he claims would correct NZ STV’s deficiencies. It is, in fact, a clumsy version of multiple-FPP. In a 3-seat ward, he wants the first three preferences to have the same weight, being the value of unity. As previously stated, this would enable the largest minority grouping to use their three votes to elect the three candidates they want, with everyone else missing out. Taking his example of Cargill 2004 on page 6 of his paper, he has determined that the total number of first, second and third preferences is 5210 + 5178+ 5127 = 15,515. To him, this is the number of valid votes. His Quota formula (on page 5) is 15515 / 3 = 5171.67 times 4 (the number of vacancies, plus 1) divided by 10 (the number of candidates), i.e. 40%, which equals 2068.668, which he has rounded up to 2069.

If the required three candidates have not attained this quota, then the total number of fourth preferences are assigned to the candidates on a pro rata basis according to his formula (on page 7). For Teresa Stevenson, therefore, the calculation is 327 / 4927 = 0.0663689 times 327 = 21.702, which he has rounded up to 22. In other words, voters have multiple votes (value 1), equal to the number of vacancies, plus further votes, if necessary, assigned on a pro rata basis, i.e. at less than the value of unity (327 votes, that he now calls preference votes, become 22 votes).

He calls his method “Proportional STV that reveals the true will of the People”. Surely he jests. First, it is not STV – it is a multiple-vote system (not a single vote system), and no votes are transferred; preferences are merely tallied.

Second, it is not proportional representation, because it is essentially multiple-FPP (with additional pro rata votes beyond the nth preference in a n-seat ward). Taking his example, three people he dislikes, because they share “political, social, lifestyle, or cultural associations or sympathies” (page 4, fourth bullet point), being Stevenson, Doug Hall and Paul McMullen, fill the three seats. In Cargill 2004, under STV, the three winners each obtained 25% of the votes, meaning 75% of the total of votes were effective in helping to elect a candidate, and they were quite different from each other. Under the Belcher-Oaten Method, the three winners are politically / socially aligned (according to him), but are elected with a total of only 7216 votes (plus 217 pro rata votes [22 + 195]) out of a total of 15,515 votes (plus 217 pro rata votes), i.e. on only 46.51% of the total of votes!! This means his Quota formula has no rational electoral basis, which leads to a concomitant conclusion that his method is well short of being mathematically rigorous.

Consequently, third, far from revealing the true will of the people, his method grotesquely distorts that will. He simply hasn’t clicked to the fact that the 987 voters who gave a second preference, and the 876 voters who gave a third preference, to McMullen (for example), would have, in many cases, helped to defeat their most preferred candidate, such as Paul Hudson or Michael Guest. Although it would be transparent, it is hardly fair, accurate or democratic. And once those voters see what they’ve done (because of the transparency), they’ll never express second or subsequent preferences again, and then we’ll be back to FPP – actually, we would have, by default, a close approximation of the Single NON-Transferable Vote in a multi-seat ward (a system, previously used in Japan, that produces unequal representation, or no representation at all, for voters).

Mr Oaten states that the first preferences of the highest polling candidates are never looked at (page 3, paragraph immediately above the table, and in a posting dated 22 August (at 11.35 a.m.)). That is simply not true. For example, once Stevenson attained the quota, her keep value was recalculated (at iteration 3) as 0.98857…, and was recalculated as the count progressed. Her final keep value was 0.66775… That means, at the conclusion of the count, she had kept 66.78% of all her votes, and the remaining 33.22% had been transferred to the second and subsequent preferences on her votes (both her first-preference votes, and those votes she acquired along the way), to help elect other candidates.

I suspect Mr Oaten laments the fact that, in Cargill in 2004, he was excluded from the count at the same time Stevenson was elected (at iteration 2), which meant he was unable to benefit from any second preferences given for him on her 1,313 papers. But, at iteration 3, Alan McDonald only received 104 papers from her (value 1.89 votes), Steve Young only received 156 papers from her (value 1.78 votes) and even Jo Galer and Nicola Holman only received 202 and 200 papers, respectively, from her (value 2.31 votes and 2.28 votes, respectively). The simple fact of the matter is, Mr Oaten was always destined for an early exit, because only 142 people (out of 5,210) voted for him. Not even the Belcher-Oaten Method would have saved him.

In conclusion, I commend the DCC for creating the 11-seat Central Ward. What this means is that any candidate who receives one-twelfth (8.33%) of all votes cast [45% of (say) 65,000 electors = 29,250 x 0.833 = (say) 2,400 votes] will be elected. Any group of voters, comprising 8.33% of all voters, will elect a candidate to represent them, regardless of who larger groups of voters may want.

Click here for a paper that explains how single-seat STV works, and the rationale behind the system. (PDF)

Click here to see a paper that describes multi-seat STV, and the rationale hehind the system. (PDF)

Click here to see a paper that describes how single transferable votes are counted, and how individual voters can work out how their vote was used. (PDF)

Click here to see a paper that explains STV to voters (PDF).

Click here to see a paper that reconstructs in meticulous detail how the votes cast in the Cargill Ward in 2004 were counted. (PDF)

Click here to see the guide prepared for the Department of Internal Affairs, the Society of Local Government Managers Electoral Working Party and Local Government New Zealand (PDF)

Author: Steve.

Posted by Paul Le Comte