WCC Watch / June 2013
Welcome to WCC Watch. The idea is pretty simple. Basically, the coverage of the upcoming (Sept-Oct) Wellington City Council elections are going to be sporadic at best. There are a multitude of personalities at play, some smart, bold, dynamic candidates, and some total fruit bars. I’ll be trying to cover everything I can to follow the election.
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2.5% rates increase
- WCC Watch
- It must be an election year.
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Public transport fare changes
- WCC Watch
- Greater Wellington Regional Council has ignored the campaign for fairer fares for tertiary students as it drafted a new fare structure for all bus, rail and ferry trips.
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City Watch #6
- WCC Watch
- Our sixth round up of recent news and events around Wellington.
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Greens lining Kedgley up for Regional Council
- WCC Watch
- After a rather roller-coaster start to the year, the Green Party is apparently looking to bolster its local government line up.
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Fran attacks Celia
- WCC Watch
- The Dominion Post report: Wellington Mayor Celia Wade-Brown’s support for a bigger and better bus rapid transit system through the city has left Greater Wellington Regional Council chairwoman Fran Wilde “gobsmacked”.
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The Driest Little Capital In The World
- WCC Watch
- Wellington City Council have voted to make major changes to the City’s alcohol laws.
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Basin flyover an iconic structure opportunity
- WCC Watch
- Like it or not, the recent announcements by the Government mean the Basin Reserve flyover will be happening and what we now need to do is shift our thinking towards what it looks like.
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Basin Reserve, Dufferin Street, Mount Victoria, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6021, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Morrison caught out
- WCC Watch
- Wellington.
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Hitler loses the plot with the three Wairarapa Mayors re: Wgtn Super City
- WCC Watch
- It was only a matter of time until this happened – a reader sent this version associated with the Better Wairapapa lobby group in to us this afternoon.
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Hutt Valley Mayor wants a bigger office
- WCC Watch
- You will remember WCC Mayor, Celia Wade-Brown, came under fire from the Dom Post for the $350k upgrade of her office to ‘luxury nest’ status.
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Lower Hutt, Wellington, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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City Watch #5
- WCC Watch
- Our latest round up of recent news and events around Wellington.
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Billion dollar Bicycle Brown now backing buses
- WCC Watch
- Quelle surprise, it turns out Celia Wade-Brown’s flagship policy of light rail for Wellington is unaffordable with the price tag creeping towards the billion dollar mark.
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They’ve Got the City Council Blues
- WCC Watch
- The yawning (and obvious) gap between what Wellington City Council management thinks the workplace culture is, and what the rest of its employees believes has been confirmed by a damning survey.
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Peck’s problems with pay
- WCC Watch
- Labour Lambton Ward candidate, Mark Peck, has (predictably) been getting a hard time over at Whaleoil on what he pays his cafe staff and up till now we haven’t covered the issue and have given him a pretty fair run on here so far.
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WCC Twitter Banter
- WCC Watch
- Who knew that a local government Twitter feed could be so amusing while they deal with burst water mains and traffics delays? Nice to see the Wellington City Council communications team have a sense of humour buried in amongst all the press releases and job vacancy listings they have to tweet.
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Aitken Angst
- WCC Watch
- We got a rare insight into Greater Wellington Regional Council-Wellington City Council dynamics when regional councillor Judith Aitken posted this odd statement on Celia Wade-Brown’s Facebook about her (last time I checked, fellow Labour Party) colleague Daran Ponter: This prompted the following stinging rebuke from Daran Ponter and Wellington City councillor Paul Eagle: Good on Ponter for calling her out. Oh, Baby Boomer with a 100% subsided Gold Card, please tell me more about how we can’t increase public transport subsidies. This is staggering. If you’re a Regional Councillor, you would need to have been hiding under a rock for the past few years not to be aware of the issues around public transport. And you’d expect someone who has been on the GWRC since 2001 to already be discussing issues with their WCC colleagues and community stakeholders. Aitken doesn’t even live in the constituency area she is elected to represent (Wellington City), enjoys fully subsidised public transport with her tax-payer funded Gold Card, and is one of those local government shapeshifters, like Helene Ritchie, who get elected to both a council and a health board purely on name recognition, then aren’t in a hurry to leave anytime soon. She should retire and let a new, fresh, and forward thinking person take her seat and actually represent Wellington City. They deserve better.
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Strange bedfellows: Franks <3 Pannett
- WCC Watch
- Reading Stephen Franks’ latest blog post, I almost choked on my granola and soy as he seemingly endorsed Iona Pannett’s re-election.
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WCC Watch Soapbox: Hayley Robinson
- WCC Watch
- When we restarted this blog we said that we’d let candidates or readers submit a guest post or two.
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Campaign for Lambton
- WCC Watch
- Uncertainty around Ian McKinnon’s future and only three people so far contesting three seats isn’t holding back candidates in their campaigns for the Lambton Ward with 98 days until ballot papers go out.
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How long is too long at the Council table?
- WCC Watch
- We’ve made a number of references recently to the length of service by some of the Councillors, in particular Helene Ritchie’s rather drawn-out career.
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City’s Chief Bean Counter Quits
- WCC Watch
- In another break from the Kerry Predergast-Garry Poole era, Wellington City Council’s Chief Financial Officer Peter Garty has quit.
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A Living Wage for Wellington City Council
- WCC Watch
- Wellington City Councillors today supported in principle to become a ‘Living Wage Council’ and a ‘Living Wage Capital’.
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Wellington Town Hall’s Future
- WCC Watch
- Debate around the future of Wellington’s earthquake-prone historic town hall is rearing its head again after Wellington City Council CEO Kevin Lavery asked councillors to seriously consider whether it’s worth upgrading: As Mr Lavery briefed councillors yesterday on plans to strengthen the 109-year-old building at a cost of $43.
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Wellington Town Hall, MFC Town Hall L3 Link, Te Aro, Wellington, 6011, New Zealand/Aotearoa
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Breakfast with Bryan
- WCC Watch
- Thanks to the reader who sent this gem of a video in.
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Peck responds
- WCC Watch
- A couple of weeks ago NorthernWCCWatch looked at Labour’s officially endorsed slate of candidates for this year’s election and questioned if Lambton Ward candidate Mark Peck really wanted to be a Wellington City councillor.
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Coughlan and Lester ponder Ohariu
- WCC Watch
- While debate is swirling over whether the Greens and Labour will lay a Privileges Committee complaint against the hapless, Peter Dunne, already the chatter around town is shifting to his electorate and who could take over.
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Where will Ritchie go?
- WCC Watch
- As we have previously noted, Northern Ward Councillor, Helene Ritchie, likes to pop up all over Wellington.
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Wellington Breaks Free
- WCC Watch
- Great to see Celia Wade-Brown taking the initiative and showing some leadership on the march towards amalgamation.
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Fluoride Fundies
- WCC Watch
- In a huge victory for the anti-fluoride, anti-public health and anti-science lobby, Hamilton has become the the second-largest unfluoridated population in the country following a 7-1 vote by its city council.
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Shambolic Social Media
- WCC Watch
- In the latest City Watch update we touched on the social media efforts of a couple of current councillors – in particular that Celia Wade-Brown had made good use of her Facebook profile to update residents on the awful situation with the landslip.
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City Watch #3
- WCC Watch
- Our third round up of recent news and events around Wellington.
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The last stand of Prendergast’s old guard?
- WCC Watch
- Since hearing that Jo Coughlan attempted to heavy John Morrison out of the race, we have now been told by several people close to the Prendergast clique that they are desperately seeking a more right wing option for Mayor.
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