Councils Holding the Country to Ransom

[Shalodge]

That's bang on Flyernzl.

What baloney.. Is anyone in this thread planning to stand for Council (or Parliament) and change anything?? Whats that?? No one!! Why not?

Different day same old drivel..

[speights boy]

Is anyone in this thread planning to stand for Council (or Parliament) and change anything?? Whats that?? No one!! Why not?

Coz they're taking away taxpayer / ratepayer funded credit cards; so there is no more fun in it anymore.

[Shalodge]

No ill tell you why not... Cause its easier to shoot than to be shot at and everyone is too busy making money and complaining about their rates to even consider working for the community for around $5 per hour..

[Davo36]

What? $5 per second you mean don't you?

What baloney.. Is anyone in this thread planning to stand for Council (or Parliament) and change anything?? Whats that?? No one!! Why not?

The point is there's no use getting voted on to a council because the elected officials have no power. You have to be the CEO or at least high up in the bureaucrats hierarchy to do anything.

And you won't get there if you want to do things like limit bureaucrats salaries, or the number of them employed etc. because it's other bureaucrats that do the hiring and firing.

[Bob Kane]

Councils are overseen by Councilors who are voted in by you.

So who do you think runs the show:
- the elected councillors?
or
- the council employees?

[Shalodge]

Councillors are the board of directors..They make the strategic decisions. Many however are happy to sit back and bask in their "status", pick up their $ and leave the ship to the CEO..

That is how the voters want it or they wouldnt keep voting the same losers in each trienium.

If the majority of Councillors simply passed a resolution requiring the CEO reduce the rates then that is exactly what will happen..

Why dosnt that work.. Cause the CEO then goes and cut services, the voter rings up about the rubbish and is told that the litter service has been canned. The voter then screams the house down and votes out the councillors..

QED

Voters get the councils they deserve!

[speights boy]

QED

Voters get the councils they deserve!

I guess that's why down here at 47* South we are very happy with our council.

SB

[donna]

I see our rates are on the rise again - up by 15 % in some areas of Kapiti.

I heard at least 85 % of KCDC Council revenue comes from Residential Property rates - they sure are holding us to ransom with no apparent desire to attract Business here.

Cheers,

Donna

[Perry]

Voters get the councils they deserve!

So, Shalodge, speak to us of the alternative[s]?
.

[partya]

I had a classic Council moment today. My bank wrote me a letter saying that I had not paid my rates and they had been approached by the Council to pay these. I thought this was a bit strange as all of my properties rates are up to date. So after about 50 minutes on the phone, it turns out that about 2 years ago, a sub-council was formed to look after 'environmental factors' and consequently charged seperately to the main Council (Horowhenua).
I have had this particular property for nearly 5 years and have always received the rates notices and paid accordingly. One would think that if you were to split into two, you would take relevant details with you? Their excuse as to this mix up is that they didn't have my address and therefore I didn't receive any notices to pay them. Considering the amount of people who live within the Councils boundaries (about 40,000 from memory), do they really need a sub-council????

[eri]

Manukau City Council has scrapped plans for an $85,000 farewell party which was to be held before the council was replaced by the super city council.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/3894093/Councils-85-000-farewell-scrapped

[Perry]

So easy to do with other people's money,
eh? No one excels better than governments,
local and national. Everywhere.
.

[Davo36]

The accountant tenant I am dealing with over my property in Papakura said this to me the other day:

as I mentioned before we are $7k over budget on the garage we are trying to build thanks to the Papakura District Council

Just another little anecdote.

[Jalice888]

Manukau City Council has scrapped plans for an $85,000 farewell party which was to be held before the council was replaced by the super city council.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/poli...ewell-scrapped

They should all scrap those parties as it's just an excuse to party. The controlling council of elected members and upper management will merge but structure will totally collapse if they don't keep the rest working the way they are already doing. How many places party up then change their names only to continue just as before ?
Never expect anything decent. Look at Auckland City Council Valuations department; a staff member there was given a registered valuation I had done for a property I have, while the council had used scammer Quality Valuation (no quality at all from these council hired theives) price that was double this registered valuation by highly regarded valuers. The idiot getting paid by us in that department sent a reply to my LAQC which couldn't own the property with the valuation considerable less than the purchase price, the place is in my personal name so it was never sent to me. That reply said they couldn't accept my appeal as it was too late for the previous year which was under 1 month from ending, we wanted it done for the coming year starting in 3 weeks.

Instead of the councils having a party when Supercity takes over, lets wait and see if they just transfer all the worst people there. Once things show the new direction, if there's an improvement we would all have money left over to throw a party for ourselves .

[Davo36]

Even The PM Can't Work With Auckland Councils

I find it interesting and somewhat consoling that even the PM and top ministers can't get what they want done in a reasonable time in Auckland.

I'm talking about the ARC scuppering the 'Party Central' idea.

Leave aside for a moment whether you think the 'Party Central' is a good idea or not. I'm more interested in why it can't seem to be done. Even if you're the government, you get the finger from the ARC if they don't think you're doing the right thing in their city.

And I use the term 'their city' intentionally. From my perspective, the council and regional council planners really think that it's their place and they know best what should be done with it.

Now whilst ownership of a city and involvement is a good thing (I wouldn't want them to totally not care), the local government bureaucrats have gone a bit far. They have moved from a position where they perhaps say "It would be good if this could be done.." or "We'd like to see more open space..." or "We'd like to keep those sheds, we think they have some heritage value..." and so on to where what they say is more along the lines of "We won't approve your proposal unless..." or "We have decided that your idea is wrong and here's the bill for doing so..." or "The district plan that we have put in place will make it very difficult for you to do that..." or "We like those sheds so they're staying...".

It's an important difference I feel. They have gone from being in the position of making sure things comply with the rules to being the drivers of how things happen.

I think they really do feel that if they just leave things up to developers then the city will become a mess and/or won't develop along the lines they want. They really seem to feel they have a duty to make developers 'do the right thing' in terms of buildings, subdivisions and so on.

I'm sure they even think they have the public behind them on a lot of this stuff. And to be fair, I'm not sure whether they do or don't. I am sure though that anyone who has been involved with any Auckland council over the last few years would have a vastly different opinion (a more crystallised one) to anyone who hasn't dealt with one or more of the councils.