Let’s face it, our cities are messy urban sprawls. The rapid growth of the last thirty years has been disorganised and disjointed, resulting in choked motorways and inefficient infrastructure. If only we’d had people to carefully plan it. We did. An entire profession of planners has poured out
This article is about Otago but is relevant to the whole of New Zealand. It is typical of how councils are operating. The Otago electricity lines company, Aurora, is owned by the Dunedin City Council on behalf of the people of Dunedin – except it isn’t. It is owned by
You are going to get used to the term “Three Waters” in 2021. It refers to drinking water, storm water, and waste water (sewage). Along with roads, the three waters are the core of council infrastructure, and, historically, the reason for councils’ existence. Legislation from the 1860s created borough councils
From the early days of colonial settlement, New Zealand’s towns and boroughs formed councils as a way of communities working together for the greater good. They settled local disputes and coordinated shared resources long before there was any legal framework. The first government laws about councils were the creation
Q: How many people work at your local council? A: About a third of them. This was told to me as a joke, but I did a statistical analysis of productive outputs versus wage costs and it is a pretty accurate estimate. I know a lot of council staff who
This is a warning to all New Zealanders. YOU ARE A TARGET. If you own your home, you will be hit with huge rate increases. If you rent, your landlord will pass on the rates cost. Councils are using TARGETED RATES to disguise increased charges. These are taxes for a
The novel and film starring Jack Nicholson, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, is a study of the psychiatric institutions of the mid-twentieth century and the human mind. Nicholson’s character, the inmate McMurphy, attempts to take control of the asylum through cunning manipulation. He fails. In New Zealand,
In the week I am writing this, Wellington City Council has announced it is facing a whopping 23% rates rise, and Tauranga Mayor Tenby Powell has resigned amidst calls to replace elected councillors with a government commissioner. There is something seriously wrong with our council system. In order to have
In 2007 Hamilton City Council began public consultation on a new subdivision, known after the local farming family who owned large tracts of the land as the Peacocke Growth Cell. The process begins with a “structure plan” to show the general development zones and principal infrastructure. My feedback at the
These days, a Democratic Republican Party sounds like an oxymoron, but it actually existed and had a long history in American politics. Founded in 1790 by Thomas Jefferson, it produced the third, fourth, and fifth presidents of the United States. A party candidate described as a political outsider and man
The National government set up the Rules Reduction Taskforce which received over 2,000 submissions from across the country. Their findings were released in the Loopy Rules Report in 2015. “New Zealanders are fed up wasting time and money trying to work with loopy rules” it begins. “Everyone we heard
The word ‘incredible’ does not mean ‘great’. It literally means ‘without credibility’. It refers to something that is unbelievable. The most incredible claim of the current US election cycle is that “there has been no fraud”, a bizarre phrase repeated by MSM without evidence because they have not waited for
The only certain things are death, taxes, and council budget blow-outs. Why does this always happen? Here is a typical example to explain why. Hamilton City Council is planning several new roads to open up farm land south of the city for a new suburb. Nobody questions the need, but
The journalist that risked everything to break the Edward Snowden story, Glenn Greenwald, has just resigned from the United States news outlet The Intercept. This is astonishing because he founded The Intercept after the challenges of getting Snowden’s message out into the public eye. The sole purpose of The
Two weeks ago, I wrote an article bringing readers up to speed with Joe Biden’s history of dodgy family deals. It was to prepare readers with background information about a major scandal that former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani was getting ready to break. Last week, the New York
A soap opera with dramatic financial consequences in playing out in Hamilton. It is a story of what happens when a bunch of amateurs try to run a city. The council is planning on demolishing the famous Founders Theatre, which has been Waikato’s premier stage and concert venue for
