Council Spending

Every council, every government department and just about every corporate entity will tell you that they are highly efficient, well oiled machines. That is usually until someone new comes along and proves otherwise.

The story’s the same but this time it’s your council that’s in the firing line, because you and I have had enough and despite years of promises by Mayors and councillors nothing has ever changed.

Our approach is and will be different.

Inflation is at a mere 0.4%, most companies and organisations are working smarter, more efficiently and at cheaper rates but not your incumbent Mayor or councillors.

Bureaucracy and red tape are not efficient, the recent announcement of yet another management tier in council, is not efficient, miscalculation of interest swaps amounting to a $7,000,000.00 ( seven million dollar loss ) paper loss is not efficient, the signing off of incomplete projects, is not efficient, ( a further $7,000,000.00 loss ) passing bylaws that are thrown out, is not efficient, wasting money on court cases when you are wrong, is not efficient, basing cash flows on the sale of a property the terms of which were ruled to be illegal, is not efficient.

There are piles upon piles of examples of inefficiency within our council and that is not even addressing the excessive use of outside consultants, offshore contractors and failed legal challenges. The waste is staggering!

Things are getting well out of control...

Go-Whangarei will stop wasteful spending using common sense and greater business experience.
We will maintain infrastructure with greater efficiency and with better project management.
We will encourage greater community participation in getting projects done economically and without the red tape and bureaucracy. We will be flexible.
There are skills in council that should be better utilised and we will do this.
Present Councillors have not taken responsibility rather they rely on expensive consultants to do so. We will take responsibility and we have the experience and skills to make decisions ourselves.
Council spending must be reined in. Bureaucracy must be cut, paperwork must be reduced, meetings should be reduced and consultancy reports cut across the board. In summary, we WILL cut costs.
We will do jobs once and do them properly.
We will introduce a greater efficiency, working smarter and we will look for and embrace simple and practical solutions.
We will support those who bring common sense and sound solutions.

Airport. Consultancy $2.0M +

More consultancy reports costing $2M? Go-Whangarei has several experienced pilots and within our community we have further experience and a load of common sense that is immediately available at little or no cost. Let’s open those discussions and see where they lead. It’s simple, it’s cost effective and there is no immediate panic.

We will not be spending any more money on consultancy reports. We will adopt sensible dialogue with local experts and pilots alike whilst we consider the merits of any new airport.

Whau Valley Dam upgrade $18 M +

Can we afford this? Do we need it right now? They will say yes. We say no!

Our dam continues to serve us extremely well and has through two of the worst droughts in over 80 years and according to our previous council it did so without restriction or problems. Our population is merely ‘dribbling up’ and quite a number of those increases are rural and lifestyle blocks who have their own water supplies and don’t require reticulated water.

Our current water supply is able to be maintained.

We intend to postpone this development in favour of better supporting our communities and concentrating on economic growth until council and ratepayers are in a better position to afford it. This is the sensible option.
Our system currently provides 15,000 m3 which according to previous council engineers was more than sufficient.
Council’s own figures show there to have been a zero increase in rateable properties over the past 3 years and only minor population growth mostly of which was internal.
Council has in place additional water take consents that protect future growth.
According to council engineers our water is effectively treated and poses no risk.
A considerable amount of our growth is expected to come from rural areas and lifestyle blocks that do not require reticulated water and use natural rain water. These are the area’s where growth should be encouraged and that fits well with our ‘lifestyle’ environment.

New Council Building $10M +

When has this council done anything that has saved you and I any money? Rising rates, rising rubbish costs, rising fees.

Building a new council building will be the last thing we do and until we have some established and obvious economic growth and increased prosperity throughout our district we will obtain the ‘promised’ savings through better management and the streamlining of bureaucratic processes of which our council has its fair share. This in our opinion is a safer bet and considerably more prudent.

We will not be proceeding with a $10,000,000.00 + council building; rather we will set about streamlining procedures and reducing red tape and bureaucracy. We will be encouraging a work leaner, work smarter attitude with greater staff involvement and a happier environment for them all to work in.

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