Wellington Scoop and Government
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The flyover gets debated again, this time by regional councillors
- Wellington Scoop
- Almost 20 years ago, when Fran Wilde was Mayor, the Wellington City Council allowed a supermarket to be built in a priceless viewshaft at the northern end of Cambridge Terrace. Almost 20 years later, the Wellington Regional Council (with Fran Wilde as chair) has supported a proposal which will cause an equal amount of damage at the opposite end of the wide boulevard.
- Accepted from Wellington Scoop features
- Tagged as:
- basin-reserve-flyover
- regional-council
Basin Reserve, Dufferin Street, Mount Victoria, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6021, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Option X is affordable
- Wellington Scoop
- I hope the Wellington City Council doesn’t give up on its efforts to get the roading improvements that are best for the city, in spite of the government’s short-sighted attitude towards tunnels. Even the Transport Agency accepts the benefits of Option X, as councillors discovered at Tuesday’s briefing.
- Accepted from Wellington Scoop features
- Tagged as:
- wellington-city-council
- basin-reserve-flyover
Basin Reserve, Dufferin Street, Mount Victoria, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6021, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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The dubious transport solution for Wellington: the cheapest option
- Wellington Scoop
- Wellington city councillors were told yesterday that the government will not pay for Option X. What would be best for the city is not acceptable for the politicians. They want the cheapest possible deal. Not that the government delivered this decision directly. The information emerged at a briefing meeting, almost as a throwaway line, in response to a question from a councillor who asked: “In terms of funding for Option X, what are the chances of the government fronting up with the extra money?”
- Accepted from Wellington Scoop features
- Tagged as:
- basin-reserve-flyover
- wellington-city-council
Basin Reserve, Dufferin Street, Mount Victoria, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6021, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Basin Reserve flyover: councillors being advised to accept the unacceptable
- Wellington Scoop
- Wellington City Councillors have been told that a flyover alongside the Basin Reserve will have seriously significant negative consequences. Yet they’re being advised to shrug off these problems, and to support the flyover rather than Option X which doesn’t require an elevated road. Councillors should not agree to this bad advice.
- Accepted from Wellington Scoop features
- Tagged as:
- wellington-city-council
- basin-reserve-flyover
Basin Reserve, Dufferin Street, Mount Victoria, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6021, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Smart but not green
- Wellington Scoop
- You need to compare two different sources to find out what happened to the word “green” at last night’s Wellington City Council meeting.
- Accepted from Wellington Scoop features
- Tagged as:
- conservation
- wellington-city-council
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Basin flyover: the mayor opposes it, but what about the councillors?
- Wellington Scoop
- As Mayor Celia Wade-Brown continues her opposition to the Basin Reserve flyover, it’s sad that so few Wellington city councillors are showing similar concern. It’s equally lamentable that councillors aren’t protesting at the lack of democracy in the the planning process.
- Accepted from Wellington Scoop features
- Tagged as:
- basin-reserve-flyover
- wellington-city-council
Basin Reserve, Dufferin Street, Mount Victoria, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6021, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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They’re wasting money on the waterfront
- Wellington Scoop
- The Wellington City Council will today be deciding to spend money preparing to review its ten-year-old waterfront framework. The council will be wasting the money. It’s planning to ask questions to which it already knows the answers. There’s no need for a review.
- Tagged as:
- waterfront
- wellington-city-council
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The rates go up, then up and down
- Wellington Scoop
- The Wellington City Council yesterday announced an add-on to next year’s budget – an extra $120,000 “to improve community emergency preparedness.” In the same announcement, we’re told that the average rates increase is going up to 4.4 per cent from the previously announced 4.3 per cent. Curiously, the council also tells us that rates increases for homeowners and commercial property owners will be coming down.
- Tagged as:
- rates
- wellington-city-council
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Time for homeowners to speak up loudly about the rates burden, urges councilor
- Wellington Scoop
- With the Wellington City Council’s Funding, Activities and Revenue working party finishing its deliberations, the prospect of homeowners being asked to shoulder the rates burden again is almost a foregone conclusion. That will mean another zero rates increase to the owners of commercial buildings and another seven percent increase for home owners.
- Tagged as:
- wellington-city-council
- rates
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The price of parking, the cost of leaks
- Wellington Scoop
- We learnt last week that the Wellington City Council earns $6000 every year from each of its pay-and-display parking spaces. The news came in a statement from the Mayor, responding to a DomPost report that the council was thinking of ending free parking for motorbikes and scooters. Not so, she said.
- Submitted by tonytw1
- Tagged as:
- parking
- wellington-city-council
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Threat to Johnsonville property values? Planning changes become election issue
- Wellington Scoop
- The Johnsonville Progressive Association has today been describing a basic fear of property owners whose savings are in their houses. The association says that Johnsonville residents are upset by the Wellington City Council’s District Plan Change 72, which councilors will be voting on tomorrow. It fears that the changes will push their suburb down the socio-economic ladder. And if Johnsonville goes down, down with it will go the value of the houses.
- Tagged as:
- johnsonville
- wellington-city-council
- elections-2010
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What to do with parking fines?
- Wellington Scoop
- After claims that Wellington parking wardens were given ipods and overseas trips to encourage revenue gathering, the Wellington City Council put an end to the speculation – there was just one ipod, and one overseas trip. Both prizes were gifted in a warden’s competition which had nothing to do with how much revenue they’d collected. Fair enough, too. Many employees are offered rewards for a whole range of reasons. But public perception is hard to shake. So, what should the council do? Here’s an idea that’s guaranteed to please everybody. Well, nearly everybody.
- Tagged as:
- wellington-city-council
- parking
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Communication, non-communication
- Wellington Scoop
- Fifteen days ago we reported that the Wellington City Council had breached its design brief for the waterfront. Because this was a serious allegation, I referred it to the council and invited a response. Perhaps, I thought, the council might admit it had made a mistake. But since then: silence. The lack of response seems to be a sort of guilty plea from the council, which is usually quick to speak out in its own defence.
- Tagged as:
- wellington-city-council
- waterfront
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Bullshit, says the mayor to her councilors
- Wellington Scoop
- It didn’t seem to be a good day for Wellington Mayor Prendergast at Wednesday’s meeting of her council’s strategy and policy committee. After an amendment to the city-wide alcohol ban was proposed by Cr Wain – to limit its extension to two suburbs where there was public support for it – the mayor instructed the councilors that, by living in the city voted 12th in the world in quality of life, they should “have the guts” to vote for the city-wide ban which she favoured.
- Tagged as:
- liquor-ban
- wellington-city-council
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Who’ll be voting for more annual increases in our rates?
- Wellington Scoop
- Soon after the government announced its tax cuts, the Wellington City Council moved in the opposite direction and announced its annual increase in rates. Last week’s announcement tells us that the rates for Wellington home owners are going up by an average of 5.75 per cent. The increase is even higher than than the figure which the council announced a month ago – when it said that 5.5 per cent was to be the increase for home owners.
- Tagged as:
- wellington-city-council
- rates
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The pressure to spend more money, and the worry of a bad reputation
- Wellington Scoop
- The Wellington City Council’s waterfront company is keeping the pressure on councilors to pay for two expensive and controversial projects which haven’t yet been approved. By June next year, says Wellington Waterfront Ltd in its Statement of Intent which was given to councilors on Friday, plans for the temporary ice skating rink and the temporary sideless tent “will be significantly advanced, if not completed.”
- Tagged as:
- wellington-city-council
- waterfront
- ice-skating-rink
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Zumba! Zumba! Zumba!
- Wellington Scoop
- he city council phoned me this week. It wanted to know what I thought about its plan for a city-wide drinking ban 24 hours a day and seven days a week. It wasn’t actually the council who called. It was a market research company, hired by the council. But the questioning were more or less unbiased, except when the researcher told me the police prefer a city-wide ban. However he didn’t push the council view.
- Tagged as:
- liquor-ban
- wellington-city-council
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The $2m Serepisos secret is out
- Wellington Scoop
- A month ago when we published a series of articles asking the Wellington City Council for more information about unpaid rates and ground rents, the whole town seemed to know that Terry Serepisos was involved. But the council guarded its secret.
- Tagged as:
- wellington-city-council
- developments
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Council’s ’strategic priorities’ threaten to close suburban libraries in Wadestown, Brooklyn, Island Bay and Khandallah
- Wellington Scoop
- in the Wellington City Council’s draft annual plan for 2010/11 there is a major threat to our current library system – with potential for Wadestown, Brooklyn, Island Bay and Khandallah to lose their libraries.
- Tagged as:
- wadestown
- khandallah
- island-bay
- brooklyn
- wellington-city-council
- consultation
- libraries
Khandallah, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6035, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Councilors fail in their effort to save money on the $400,000 waterfront toilets
- Wellington Scoop
- City councilors have failed to persuade the council-owned Wellington Waterfront company to save money by reducing the cost of new public toilets. In November, the councilors instructed the company to explore how to reduce the estimated $400,000 cost of new public toilets on the waterfront at Kumutoto.
- Tagged as:
- waterfront
- wellington-city-council
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The residents fight back
- Wellington Scoop
- A conference of residents’ associations at Parliament on Saturday decided to set up a citizens’ forum – as a direct response to the “closed shop” approach of the Wellington Mayoral Forum’s review of governance in the region.
- Tagged as:
- supercity
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The politics of urinating
- Wellington Scoop
- Tagged as:
- wellington-city-council
- liquor-ban
- karori-sanctuary
Zealandia, Lake Road, Highbury, Wellington, Wellington Region, 6011, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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What more can we be told about the people who owe money to the council?
- Wellington Scoop
- Ratepayers have reason to want more information about the $30million in overdue payments which was owing to the Wellington City Council at the end of its last financial year.
- Tagged as:
- wellington-city-council
- rates
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Why the secrecy about debtors?
- Wellington Scoop
- When the Wellington City Council’s audit and risk subcommittee met behind closed doors yesterday afternoon, the last item on its agenda was a report giving details about people who owe money to the council. Ratepayers, one presumes.
- Tagged as:
- wellington-city-council
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Why the secrecy?
- Wellington Scoop
- The Wellington City Council has issued another agenda with a list of topics which it intends to discuss behind closed doors. At a meeting of the council’s audit and risk subcommittee on Friday afternoon, the public will be sent out of the room before five presumably contentious issues are dealt with.
- Tagged as:
- wellington-city-council
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