"Darwin Lives" At Museum

We spent a great evening last night in the Animal Attic at the museum, with Charles Darwin. He was impersonated in a one-man show by Ken Benn, who brought to life Victorian times and the great Evolution controversy between Science and the Church. Darwin's breakthrough was to discern the mechanism of evolution: natural selection. He was influenced by the flora and fauna that he saw on his travels around the world on the Beagle, and his observation of the changes in domestic animals as a result of selective breeding.
Last night's show was $5 with tea and cakes, but there are free shows at other times.The show accompanies the "Charles Darwin: Evolutionary Thinking" exhibition at the museum. 2009 is the year of Darwin and marks a double celebration – not only is it 200 years since the scientist’s birth, but also 150 years since The Origin of Species was first published.
Ken Benn has also impersonated Leonardo da Vinci and Ernest Shackleton, to to accompany their respective exhibitions.

Misleading Recycling Consultation

The Dunedin City Council promotional material for the consultation on Recycling changes (pdf here) features a smiling Solid Waste Manager, Ian Featherston, alongside the various "choices" of recycling bins. Anyone reading this material would expect to have a choice of bins, if the proposed scheme is implemented.
But in the official consultation proposal (pdf here), there is no choice: everyone must use the new 140-litre wheelie-bin, unless they apply and are approved on a "special needs" basis. In fact, the Council recently considered and rejected the suggestion, by Councillor Richard Walls, of giving house-holders a choice of bins (ODT story here).
It will be interesting to see how the Council deals with this apparent blunder, during the consultation process. It will be sensitive to criticism following the Parking fiasco.
I think that that choice of recycling bins would be a good thing because no size will suit everybody. There are thousands of households where a 140-litre wheelie-bin would not be suitable because they have steps or do not have room. Now that the "choice" genie is out of the bottle, it will be hard to put back in again.

Calvin Questions Town Hall Business Plan

A letter from Calvin Oaten to Dscene:

I have read the report by senior manager Kate Styles to councillors on the proposed town hall/conference centre upgrade.
I was not so so much impressed by what it enclosed as by what it did not. It was in effect a synopsis of the more elaborate presentation by the architect consultants Opus Ltd. Ms Styles twice mentions her business case in support of the project. What business case? We don’t know, because she does not elaborate on it. I doubted there was one until I read the latest LTCCP.
It is planned to refurbish the town hall in conjunction with expanding and fitting out the concert chamber and parts of the municipal building in order to
create an international standard conference centre.
The idea was floated at a cost of $14m. It then developed with the controversial Harrop St "glass clip-on", at a revised price of $18.5m. Later it became $29.2m, but at the same time strong opposition over the clip-on brought about a rethink, resulting in a revised design developed more within the building
footprint. However, the estimate of capital, plus costs, are now $51.245m.
Annual expenditure in operating the centre is shown as ranging from $1.679m in 2009/10 to $1.974m in 2011/12, by which time the planned development will be complete. The operating costs then take an incremental leap to $6.727m in 2012/13 and remaining at this} level through the remainder of the LTCCP.
When the cost was at $18.5m, former manager Peter Brown claimed there would be at least an additional six conferences per year for Dunedin, with an expected
economic benefit to the city of around $3m per year. When the project cost moved to $29.2m, Ms Styles said there would be an increase of 16 conferences per year prov1ding an economic benefit of some $16m.
Now that the cost is over $50m, will she explain her business case, explaining how many extra conferences she now plans for, and the empirical evidence to
substantiate her projections?
What would be the the economic benefits now accruing, bearing in mind the huge increase in debt servicing and operating costs being imposed on the ratepayers?

Calvin Oaten,
Pine Hill

Council Guarantees Otago Rugby Debt

The Dunedin City has confirmed that it has purchased Otago Rugby's Carisbrook property for $7 million dollars. Otago Rugby will lease Carisbrook back for three years and pay for operational and debt-servicing costs. In addition, the Council has agreed to guarantee the interest on the ORFU's seasonal debt.
Mayor Peter Chin claims that:

"This is good news for the ratepayers and for the ORFU. It represents a sound investment based on a rigorous independent valuation of the current and future values across a range of land uses, all of which makes this a canny investment."

Note that there has been no proper registered valuation, as would be expected in a deal of this type, and that the valuation includes "future values". $7 million seems significantly higher than current market value taking into account the cost of demolition and the interference by the Historic Places Trust. When the lease ends after three years, the Council will be faced with servicing the $7 million debt. It is hard to see how it is a "canny investment".
The Council is relying on Otago Rugby for most of the revenue for the new Stadium. Otago Rugby has had to be bailed out of financial difficulty because the product that it is selling in not attracting enough paying customers. This hardly inspires confidence in the success of the Stadium.

Stephens Cairns' Two Hats

Letter to the ODT:

Otago regional councillors Gerry Eckhoff and Bryan Scott are right to pursue ORC chairman Stephen Cairns over the appropriateness of his dual ORC and real estate roles. Either actual or perceived conflicts of interest are something any organisation has to be vigilant about.
It is on public record that Mr Cairns has acted for many years for multimillionaire developer Earl
Hagaman, as his real estate agent. Mr Hagaman owns a very large portfolio of property throughout the city, including the largest proportion of stadium land until it was sold to the Dunedin City Council. There is nothing wrong about this, per se, but to have a real estate
agent, Mr Cairns, in his other position as ORC chairman is simply not right.
Being chairman of the ORC places Mr Cairns in a very powerful andvinfluential position. The argument that he is entitled to an outside job is only partially true. If Mr Cairns was a hairdresser, owning his own salon, there is no likely conflict of interest having such an outside job. The problem here is he is a real estate agent.

Peter Attwooll
City Rise
[This letter was referred to Stephen Cairns, who did not wish to comment.]

There may be a Code of Conduct complaint at the Otago Regional Council arising out of this issue.
In March, Stephen Cairns denied a conflict of interest.

Dunedin Does Not Need New Library

There has been speculation that the Library is going to be moved to the Old Post Office at a cost of $20 million, the latest being Peter Entwhistle's article in today's ODT.

But does not need a new Library:

• The current Library is adequete for current and future needs. Libraries are not as important as they used to be because the Internet has taken over as the primary source of information in the community.
• The current Library's location is excellent because it is close to other places which people visit regularly anyway. I believe that a move to the Exchange will result in a drop in the number of visits to the Library.
• Dunedin cannot afford it. It is true that the funding is already in the Plan, but this requires large rate increases to pay for it.
  
• A new Library is a "want", not a "need".
  

DCC Has Lost The Plot on Facebook

Great to see local politics is going on-line with the DCC Has Lost The Plot Facebook group. It now has 2500 members. The ODT coverage is here.
It is great to have a forum where analysis and opinion can be expressed outside the control of the Dunedin City Council and the Otago Daily Times. I have avoided Facebook so far in spite of encouragement from my children, but this will be the trigger for me to join.

North Queensland Road Trip

We are back from a break from the Dunedin Winter, doing a road trip in Tropical North Queensland, from Mackay to Cape Tribulation. It is a wonderful place for a holiday, especially at this time of year when the temperature is just right for sandals and shirt-sleeves.
Mackay is a boom town on the back of the mining industry, with 40 ships queued off-shore waiting to load coal to China. In the nearby Eungella National Park, we saw platypus in the wild.
Townsville was a real city with happy locals, not a resort, and seemed good place to live in the Dry Tropics compared to the Wet Tropics to the north.
Our favourite place was The Sanctuary at Mission Beach: huts in the Rain-forest with a fine restaurant, where we were lucky to see some cassowaries. Port Douglas is an international-class resort close to the Great Barrier Reef. After croc-spotting on the Daintree river, it is Rain-forest to the end of the tar-seal at Cape Tribulation where we stayed and enjoyed tropical fruit at the Cape Trib Farmstay.