Will Kerry be Wellington’s mayor?

While Porirua and the Hutt have new mayors, Nick Leggatt and Ray Wallace respectively - the biggest question on everybody’s lips is will Celia Wade-Brown be Wellington’s new mayor. Currently she is trailing Kerry Prendergast by just 40 votes, and the Council tells me that nearly 1000 special votes will be counted on Monday.

The announcement of the results was woeful.Apparently Dunedin City Council had an announcement on its website that Wellington would not be announcing preliminary results before 6pm, but noone in Wellington knew about this until candidates were phoned this afternoon. The media reported the results before the Council even had the results on its website. Perhaps the council was trying to work out what to say. Under s85 of the Local Electoral Act it had to say something – in fact it had to make announcement of preliminary results. Trouble was, that announcement said that based on preliminary results, Prendergast had been elected.

She hadn’t been elected. She was in the lead, with Wade-Brown equally in the running due to a slim margin. And if Celia Wade-Brown wins about 52% of the specials – under STV – Prendergast won’t be elected. If the margin holds she will be elected.

It was good to see Justin Lester top the Northern Ward, getting more votes than Ngaire Best and Helene Ritchie and ousting Hayley Wain, who will now have to apply for a job. Paul Eagle and Swampy Marsh also got elected, and Rob Goulden got the boot.

Had to laugh when I saw Thomas Morgan’s result. He specialises in coming last in his ward, but he got the lowest vote of everyone in all wards - just 96 votes.

Scoop’s Alastair Thompson thinks that Celia Wade-Brown should demand a full recount of all votes to check the redistribution of mayoral votes.

Finally just a note about STV. It is important to have ranked everyone, particularly candidates you don’t like. Say, in a six candidate ticket with four getting elected, you ranked a candidate a 6 because you couldn’t stand them – and others did that too , but only ranked three other candidates as 1,2, and 3, - and many other did the same thing too with the same candidates - it could well be that the candidates you would have ranked 4th and 5th may well have got fewer votes than your most hated candidate, and therefore may have been eliminated earlier- purely because they weren’t ranked at all and the redistributed votes were primarily among the candidates most ranked in the top three. And if you wanted Kerry Prendergast for Mayor, you would have done well to rank all candidates, putting Celia Wade Brown at the bottom. If you ranked Prendergast at 1 and Wade Brown at 2 instead, with no other rankings, you have merely given the latter more of a chance of being mayor.

And due to the above workings of STV, this is one reason why Celia Wade-Brown may well be mayor after special votes have been counted. In the 2007 election, Kerry Prendergast got 34.9% of first preference votes overall, but only 25.8% of first preference votes on the specials.

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Proof: Wellington council wardens are ticketing against Council policy

I went into Wellington today and decided to park my car in Bowen Street. There is a clearway up until 9:30am so at about 9:27am I parked my car so that I could get a park at 9:30am to get to my appointment on time. Immediately after I parked a whole lot of cars lined up behind me. There were several cars already parked.

Then precisely at 9:28am out popped a parking warden from behind the bushes. The car in front of me shot off. I got out of my car and asked the warden if there was a problem, as I could see him looking at my car and scribbling something down. I was told I could not park before 9:30am and was told to leave or else I’d get a ticket. I did so and found another park at 9:30am – two minutes later up the road.

I thought that was a bit heavy handed so as it happened, I was going to the Council anyway. I took the time to speak to the manager who coordinates the parking warden contract and was advised that there is a six minute grace period – ie. that nobody should be ticketing after 9:24am on the basis of parking contrary to signs on a 9:30am clearway.

This means that although you are not really supposed to park before 9:30am, parking wardens are not supposed to issue or threaten to issue tickets after 9:24am in this area, either. Furthermore I was assured that this was certainly not happening, and that this parking warden should not be threatening to ticket within this period. They agreed that this parking warden was heavy handed and that it was perhaps a training issue for a new staff member.

However, what I did not know that up the road there were a few other wardens trying to get a scalp. And at least one did and I have the proof. My camera was busted but here’s a pic off the phone.

If you click to get a larger image, you`ll see that this ticket – not the only one - was issued at 9:25am, on Bowen Street for "parked contrary to signs indicating a 7:30am to 9:30am clearway". This is despite that I was pretty sure that there were no cars lined up at that time – perhaps it was ticketed at 9:26am, and he fudged the time by a minute. However what the parking warden appeared to do was to wait until the driver got out of his car and soon as he started walking off, that warden appeared behind his hiding place and pinged him for $60.00 – directly contravening council policy. Then by 9:35am all parking wardens had taken off to the next clearway to see how many others they could get. I noticed many drivers who parked ahead of and behind me didn't get out of their cars until after 9:30am in case they too got ticketed.

This is not a training issue, it is systemic money grabbing against council policy. And it is happening every single morning Monday- Friday. The Council claimed not to know anything about it. Do you believe them?

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Wellington City Council to give middle finger to ratepayers, telling them they are ignorant.

Yesterday, a commissioners report was posted on the Wellington City Council’s website regarding amendments to the District Plan. District Plan Change 72 will provide high-density housing in suburbs like Johnsonville and Kilbirnie as part of an urban development strategy for growth. But at the same time the Council has not made any associated plans to upgrade infrastructure to ensure these plans are successful.

Most ratepayers oppose these changes, and much of the report discussed spinning out such opposition. As the Council had “embarked on a path of intensification, the Commissioners have reported that it must continue to commit to that direction”. In other words, consult, but summarily disregard most ratepayer opposition to that direction.

More than 300 submissions were received after the plan was notified, which is an extraordinary high number. Most of these submissions were from Johnsonville ratepayers, concerned that high density housing will lower property values, and undermine the character of the suburb, which is already stretched. Johnsonville makes up six percent of the Wellington population but has been asked to accommodate 75% of the burden for growth in the Wellington area. The Council is expected to rubber stamp the changes in a few days.

The committee who wrote the report believes that many of the submitters did not understand what they were submitting to, and that “the rules proposed were not fully understood”. Some may well not have understood, because the Council is not particularly good at communicating its plans. Others who have done research on these issues have a clearer idea of what the Council intends to do and have come out more strongly against the proposals than those whom the Council claim are ignorant.

The committee also said that there was a “ demonstrated relationship between quality public transport services.. and proximity to public transport routes”. Trouble is that there is not a quality public transport system as the antiquated trains don’t turn up on time and they break down consistently, which is why passenger levels are declining.

The committee maintains that recommended changes will encourage commercial investment. In order for that to happen there needs to be development in an already crowded area. The Council believes that the proposed plan will “ encourage more comprehensive development” but says it is “ unlikely to occur.. without site amalgamations”, implying that it is doubtful that the plan will achieve its aims in that area.

If Northern Ward Councillors vote for this change to the District Plan, based on the Commissioners’ report, it gives ratepayers another good reason to turf them out in October.

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Where's my free ticket to Phoenix games?

Terry Serepisos has paid quite a bit of money into the Phoenix soccer team, and if he pays all his debts the soccer team may be in trouble. Whoop-de-do. Serepisios has paid $5m into the Phoenix but the Wellington City Council is owed $2m in rates and ground rents.

If Serepisos can't pay his rates and ground rents because he's putting too much money into the Phoenix, that means someone else is actually sponsoring the Phoenix and one of them is me, a rate payer.

So where's my tickets to Phoenix games, Serepisos? The least you can do is give me, as a sponsoring ratepayer, a family pass to home games, rather than hiring someone and paying them $200,000 with a free Merc off the back of a TV show.

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Wellington City Council to close down suburban libraries?

The Wellington City Council has a draft community facilities policy [PDF].The Council’s website summary mentions ‘strategic priorities'. These strategic priorities have the potential for the Wadestown, Brooklyn, Island Bay, Ngaio, and Khandallah libraries to close. Public meetings are being held regarding this draft policy next week at the Johnsonville, Central and Kilbirnie libraries - ironically, libraries that are going to be upgraded.

"Neighbourhood centres" that have a population of fewer than 6,000 people may not have a library service, let alone a library. Wadestown has fewer than 6000 people and has a library. But the draft plan ( in table 2 page 7) is silent about any library services for neighbourhood centres.

Other areas - called "district centres" may lose their library as well, and be downgraded to having "library services" within community spaces", such as recreation centres and community halls. This could mean that the Khandallah library could close and be reduced to a "library service" in a space like the Khandallah Town Hall or a local church. Other areas will not even have a "library service" if they are within 3 kilometres of another town that has a library service tucked away in a community hall - so the Ngaio library may close and be without a library service as it is near to the hall used for the library service in Khandallah.

Our kids often visit the local library with their school class. So much for all the kids who go to school in places like Khandallah and Island Bay, they may miss out.

Now of course the Draft Annual Plan doesn't mention closing libraries - if it did, too many people will be sending submissions to the council opposing the policy. "Strategic priorites" sounds so much nicer. Submissions to this plan close close 10 May.

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Submitting to Wellington City Council's district plan: The rubbishy treatment ratepayers get

As many know, I live in the Wellington region and the Wellington City Council is making changes to the District Plan, and have been asking for submissions. They are due on Friday week. I thought I`d do a blog post to outline how difficult it is for ratepayers to get any relevant information from the Wellington City Council to make an informed submission to a District Plan.

About three weeks ago we rang the council to get some information about the District Plan as it relates to our area.We got about 300 pages of information for just one simple request. I didn't have time to read them all, and even if I did, I had no idea whether I would find what I wanted to.

So I rang the council to see if they had any information on the council's web site. The contact person was unavailable , so I got through to someone and was told to look on a certain web page. That page had about 60 PDFs files, each having many pages. When I advised that I didn't have time to go through 60 PDF's I asked which PDF/s I should be referring to. They didn't know. So I asked them to send some material in the mail that would directly address what I wanted to submit to.

In the interim I thought I'd call the contact person on the page with all the PDF's . Perhaps that was the unavailable person who would know a bit more.I later found out indeed he is the main contact person. His name is Jeremy Blake. He wasn't just unavailable -he was on annual leave until near the date that submissions are due. Marvellous. Some "contact" person.

Anyway, I never got the material, so I rang the Mayors office. They said they`d get someone to ring me. Someone rang me back fairly promptly but that person had no idea what to tell me.

As it happens, today I received my copy of The Wellingtonian. There was an article on the "arcane" plan change process. Some residents associations have been complaining about the plan. The Councils response: Stop complaining and get on with making a submission.

Well, I had tried for 10 days and many phone calls to get some information to do so. As it stands, the Council have been useless.There has been just six submissions to the plan change that I would like to submit to, and three of those arrived in this mornings mail, according to the Council.

The District Plan affects thousands of residents. If this is the treatment the Council dish out to ratepayers after asking them to submit to the District Plan, no wonder they don't get many submissions when they call for them.

Update: I later had a call from the Council after I rang the Mayors office. It was then I was told that the very information I requested was not sent, and most of what was earlier sent had nothing to do with what was asked for. So,glad I didn't read it then. Lets see if it arrives this time.

Update 2 It arrived, by email. It was a document which was buried in one of the manuals I had been sent but the Council couldn't tell me earlier where that document was among the 300 or so pages they sent, even when asked the first few times.I can now make a submission. I have also had a chat to Cr Andy Foster, who is the councillor clued up on such matters. He was actually most helpful with navigation around the Draft Plan.I asked him to extend the deadline for submissions. Unfortunately he didn't know all the rules around the extension process.

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