Think ‘New Mosgiel Pool’, put the cost back on the Community!
But wait… “WE CAN HELP” says ex councillor Syd (aka The Slid).
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### NZ Herald Online 5:30 AM Thursday Jan 30, 2014
PPPs short-term gain but long-term pain
By Tony Holman
OPINION Mayor [Len] Brown has had another vision and is claiming public-private partnerships (PPPs) can relieve the burden on ratepayers. I wonder if he has done his homework. It’s not a vision, it’s a mirage. PPPs are joint ventures between government, or local government, and companies to build major projects such as bridges, tunnels and underground rail – and, in Britain, also hospitals. Too often PPPs overseas end in the failure of the commercial organisation, with the public picking up greatly increased costs to clear up the mess.
PPPs typically involve long-term agreements (25-50 years). They are secret – neither the public nor elected members know the terms. They are weak on accountability with virtually no transparency. They don’t appear on the public body’s “balance sheet” so its financial position looks rosier than it is.
Fixed returns to the commercial business are based on “notional” values and estimates. Real costs are almost always greatly underestimated. PPPs are much more costly than normal public sector construction. Private companies build in higher costs, making the project more expensive and bringing high risk to the venture. But considerable risk is also assigned to the government or local body. Companies can default or go into receivership, creating a debt that has to be paid for by the public and future generations, exactly as if the local body had undertaken the debt directly.
Read more
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So. There is former chair of DCC Finance, Strategy and Development, Mr Sydney Brown of the Taieri subdivisions and deals to cousins, and his property speculator/investor friends, thinking to drive the new pool project for Mosgiel. Maybe not quite a PPP but damned near it if DCC gives the nod on squishy terms. Your pockets should feel lighter already.
How much can you trust The Slid —as much as the cost of Fubar Stadium.
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Two comments from Jacob at the draft annual plan thread:
Submitted on 2014/01/27 at 9:00 pm
Mosgiel Pool. The suggestion from council is for the community board to set up a trust with $30k of ratepayers’ money, to do the consultation and get the public to buy in and dig deep and pay for this $12-$18 million project. It doesn’t take long to work out. This is the same setup that led us up the garden path with the stadium. At last count there were four pools in the area to serve the local population. What happens to them. Will they become another liability like Carisbrook? What and who actually is driving the need for a new pool? I recently asked someone who is close to this out in Mosgiel if there has been an analysis done on the need for a new pool, and was told no. But a certain developer in Mosgiel’s main street has plans for himself and his mates to get the public to front up with the money for the building, then they will be able to base some of their business on site at no cost to themselves. Mosgiel is becoming the dog of the city. Big new industrial area was trumpeted a few years ago, to be the answer to the lack of industrial land needed to attract industry to come to Dunedin, sits empty and of no use to anyone. Then we had all the new residential areas opened up in Mosgiel. Most are half empty with spec houses; good rural productive land doing nothing and going nowhere, while the stormwater drains in Mosgiel only work during a drought, and the roads are a mess, no more seal extension. Mosgiel is becoming known as the land of the retirement village and the mobile scooter. Why spend so much on a pool when so many other basic requirements are not being met. Leave it to the community board? Yeah Right.
Submitted on 2014/01/27 at 11:34 pm
Hype. Not being a res of Mosgiel I am not able to answer your question, but I have good contacts out that way who tell me that most of the pools are available, and maybe there are more than the 4 that I mentioned. By the way what is so special about Mosgiel having a new pool, areas like Green Island, Normanby and out on the Peninsula appear not to have one and are just as far from Moana pool as Mosgiel. It appears that the homework for a new pool hasn’t been done out at Mosgiel, but it appears that it was just being used as an attention grabber for the election and that didn’t appear to work either. Like I mentioned before, this has all the hallmarks of another stadium, all bullshit and no substance, just wait to see who gets appointed by the board to do the consultation. The whisper is that it is all cut and dried.
Related Post and Comments:
16.11.13 Community board (Mosgiel-Taieri) clandestine meetings
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
*Image: Syd Brown with Mosgiel sign corpsed and tweaked by Whatifdunedin
What if? Dunedin... 