Information, misinformation and… welcome to election year!

This last month has seen me shaking my head in disbelief as I read the local newspapers. There has been so much misinformation that I really doubt the wisdom of any of us thinking we are getting “news” or factual information when we read the paper these days. A pattern seems to be emerging whereby one local newspaper makes front page “news” with sensationalised stories that have little bearing on fact, then a few days later “corrects” the story with a small update. This appears to be making some councillors and councillor wannabes very excited and its clear that the election campaign, for many, is already well under way. I’m already getting sick of the electioneering - and we have the best part of nine months to go!

One of the tactics many on the election trail employ is to find (or create) an issue and use it to generate as much publicity as possible. Are these latest news stories a precursor to moves to stop projects or a way of deflecting attention away from the real issues facing council in this election year? I suspect they are designed to do both.

In the past month, we have seen scare stories about so-called funding cuts to community groups. There are no budget cuts planned, in the LTCCP, in the annual plan, or even up for discussion. Funding for community organisations was clearly signalled in the Draft LTCCP, went out for public consultation, and was published for everyone to see in the LTCCP (Long-term Council, Community Plan). Six months ago! Grab a copy of the LTCCP and see for yourself how much money is budgeted for distribution to community groups. Then ask yourself why a six-month old document has suddenly been interpreted as a funding cut that “could” put some community groups out of business. Yep, you have it - its election year!

Today’s story is one that has really incensed me. The Manawatu Standard is carrying a story, “Square works cost ratepayers $24m”, complete with quotes from the Chairman of the Infrastructure Well-Being Committee.

I was opposed to the redevelopment of The Square before I came onto council and I have not supported some of the changes that were voted on after I became a councillor (you can do a search on my blog for other articles I have posted about this). However, once council made the decision to redevelop, The Square was irrevocably changed and I have never been able to understand those few councillors who continually relitigate the issue. Especially when they were the councillors who supported the redevelopment in the first place. It was a staged redevelopment and at no stage could the project just stop without leaving The Square unfinished and with serious deficiencies.

Well, the Manawatu Standard has their scary story. $24 million? Wow! What a huge overspend! Then they say its really $23.9 million (what’s a little $100,000 between lines?) and relate it back to the original Square redevelopment proposal under Jill White’s mayoralty when council planned on spending just under $6 million on a Square facelift. During Mark Bell-Booth’s tenure as Mayor the project changed from a Square makeover to the City Heart project. The City Heart project consists of five major elements of which The Square is one.

Instead of just a garden makeover, The Square redevelopment was focused on safety through environmental design, improving usability, and incorporating an upgrade to the duck pond and refurbishment of the clocktower (which was fast becoming structurally unsound). Although the work within The Square was originally programmed over six stages, due to positive community feedback (most of which revolved around people not wanting The Square to be a construction site for six years, and many saying they just wanted council to get on with the job and get it over with), it was reduced by Council to three stages and had a total approved funding of $10.8M. This job is programmed for completion by 30 June 2007 and is on budget. There is no further capital work programmed within this green space.

Other aspects of City Heart include the ring road upgrade, improvements to roading, footpaths, verandahs, and gateway enhancements. These are all in the LTCCP and are planned over many years. Of course they are - the LTCCP is a planning document indicating planned expenditure (and how its going to be paid for) for the next ten years and beyond. So, City Heart is budgeted for a spend of $23.9 million over many years, but The Square is a $10.8 million project and there has not been any overspend on this. There is a very big difference between “Square Works cost ratepayers $24 million” and “council budgeted $10.8 million and the development is on budget”. It would be nice if the newspaper would get its facts straight and give us information instead of a beat-up.

The Standard story also mentions that Design and Professional Advice fees for the upgrade have amounted to approximately $700,000. They got that part right. What the newspaper fails to say, however, is how much of those fees have been generated by the Mayor and councillors. Every time council has relitigated the City Heart decision, it has called for another report to be added to yet another meeting agenda. Every time councillors insist on consultants coming to council meetings to update councillors, the bill goes up. A consultant is based in Auckland? Too bad, some councillors have questions so let’s fly the consultant here, make them sit through hours of our meetings until we finally get to the item on the Order Paper, ask them a couple of questions, then put them up in a hotel until they can fly back to Auckland. That may sound tongue-in-cheek but, sadly, it happens.

When council makes a decision, it instructs the Chief Executive to implement the decision. This means that from that point onward, responsibility for complying with council’s decision, and accountability to council for it, rests with the Chief Executive and the officers who are delegated to ensuring our directives are followed. If councillors have questions, we ask the officers who are responsible for managing the project. We, in fact, have no authority for involving ourselves individually in management. Yet, time after time, the Mayor and some individual councillors have gone directly to consultants, architects, and designers, sometimes even requesting they make themselves available for informal, unauthorised meetings. Guess who gets the bill? We all do. These professionals charge for their time, which is right and proper, and are not in a position to question the Mayor or councillors over whether they have the authority to consult with them. The endless consulting with consultants over City Heart drives me to distraction and I don’t see any changes in behaviour coming in this term of council. A similar thing has been happening recently over the CBD upgrade with private meetings scheduled by the Mayor with the architect. The very worrying thing about all this is that none of these additional consultancy expenses have been budgeted for.

The chickens will come home to roost as we move further into the Draft Annual Plan process. Council will have to wake up and make some tough calls in order to keep rates down while keeping growth on target. We are looking at a rate increase of over 17% at the moment but I guess that no matter how the Draft Annual Plan turns out, the Standard will keep on misleading everyone over the costs and election hopefuls will keep on beating up non-existent issues as we roll through to the election.