Council Website STILL Facing Issues

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Unacceptable

 

From Auckland Council as the website still faces issues:

Auckland Council website update

 

Auckland Council’s website is continuing to experience intermittent technical issues as people try to access the new 2014 property valuations published yesterday.

 

Acting Chief Finance Officer Kevin Ramsay says the council apologises for the ongoing problem. The council is adding more IT resources and bandwidth to its website to help cope with the traffic.

 

The website yesterday experienced a more than 1,000% increase in page views for a single day. On an average the site gets between 80,000 to 90,000 daily page views and yesterday, despite the intermittent site fluctuations, there were 977,968 page views.

 

“IT staff are working long hours to try to make the site more stable and resolve any of the technical issues involved and we apologise for the inconvenience.”

 

The valuations, which are completed every three years, will be used to help determine the share of rates for each property for year beginning 1 July 2015, but have no impact on the amount of rates council collects overall

 

Council property valuations – key facts: 

  • Property valuations help determine the share of rates people pay but have no impact on the amount of rates money the council collects

 

  • This year’s property revaluation showed an average capital value increase of 29 per cent since 2011

 

  • The average residential capital value increase was 34.8 per cent

 

  • All property owners will also receive a notice in the mail in mid-November

 

  • All property owners have the right to object to their values and the objections process is now open.

 

aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/EN/ratesbuildingproperty/ratesvaluations/valuations/Pages/home.aspx

 

 

—ends—

 

Rather unacceptable and it seems it could have been avoidable as well after some rounds of coffees with friends in the IT sector.

The NBR has the responses from the Council Chief Financial Officer which can be seen here: http://www.nbr.co.nz/opinion/auckland-councils-property-value-website-crash-%E2%80%94-offline-problem

 

My Valuations Walk Through can be seen (or rather listened to) here: Run Through The Valuations

 

Follow up podcast on what could be done in response to the valuations will go up tomorrow.

 

Three Kings Submissions Extended

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Submission Deadline Extended Owing to Website Issues

 

From Auckland Council:

Three Kings Quarry submissions extended

 

The closing date for public submissions on two private plan changes by Fletcher Residential Ltd for the redevelopment of Three Kings Quarry has been extended to 5pm Friday 14 November 2014. 

 

Submissions were due to close on Monday 10 November.

 

The extension is a result of difficulties experienced by some online submitters caused by technical issues on the Auckland Council website resulting from large number of people accessing information on property revaluations.

—ends—

 

Questions around the saga of the Council website crashing still need to be answered seeming $700m was spent “upgrading” it.

 

Podcast Issues

· 1 Comment ·

Update

 

After feedback in relation to people unable to listen to the Podcasts as the audio files were the .OGG type, I have decided the following:

  1. All previous podcasts will remain in their .OGG audio file classes.
  2. All podcasts as of last night and into the future will be done in MP3 audio format

 

I apologise for those who are unable to access the older Podcasts that have the .OGG audio classes. That said I noticed those who were unable to run that audio type either were on Corporate Networks most likely still on Windows XP and/or their IT departments dont allow a decent media player to run .OGG’s for which Radio NZ uses for their audio files as well, or using Apple products.

I suppose with the corporate situation it shows again that New Zealand businesses AND the Public Sector are behind the 8-ball again for the most part. As with Apple products? Never had the time for it.

 

So again apologies readers. All future podcasts will be in the MP3 format for more universal accessibility.

 

Council Notice on Website Issues

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Ouch

 

From Auckland Council

Auckland Council apologises for difficulties accessing property valuations online

 

Auckland Council has apologised for difficulties accessing the new 2014 property valuations published on its website today.

Acting Chief Finance Officer Kevin Ramsay says council is working to resolve the issue but said that some people may still experience intermittent delays or difficulties accessing property valuations.

“We are sorry for the inconvenience this has caused,” Mr Ramsay said. “We are working to resolve this issue with our website as quickly as possible. We know there is huge interest in this year’s property valuations and had planned for a user-friendly experience, so it is regrettable these problems occurred.”

The valuations, which are completed every three years, will be used to help determine the share of rates for each property for year beginning 1 July 2015, but have no impact on the amount of rates council collects overall

Council property valuations – key facts:

 

  • Property valuations help determine the share of rates people pay but have no impact on the amount of rates money the council collects
  • This year’s property revaluation showed an average capital value increase of 29 per cent since 2011
  • The average residential capital value increase was 34.8 per cent
  • All property owners will also receive a notice in the mail in mid-November
  • All property owners have the right to object to their values and the objections process is now open.

More at: aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/EN/ratesbuildingproperty/ratesvaluations/valuations/Pages/home.aspx

——-ends——

Note: the Residential Average I used for the base formula in my previous post is at 34.8% not 34% as I stated. I means I am up for a Rates rise of 7.1% not 7.9% as mentioned earlier. None the less it is still looking down the barrel of a stiff Rates rise on these approximates!

 

 

Podcast Technical Issues

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Will reconvert later today

 

Myself and Radio NZ's Todd Nial hard at work reporting on the Budget Committee Photo Reference: Councillor Cathy Casey
Myself and Radio NZ’s Todd Nial hard at work reporting on the Budget Committee
Photo Reference: Councillor Cathy Casey

I have received feedback that people are having difficulties accessing the podcasts owing to the .OGG format I use. Those using Apple (argh), older corporate based networks (don’t ask for my opinions on businesses and public sectors being inefficient) or older mobile devices are having access difficulties resulting in the podcast not playing.

 

What I will do is reconvert the podcasts back to MP3 format and reupload them to their respective blog posts.

I should have this all done by the end of tomorrow.

 

Talking Auckland apologises for earlier inconveniences

 

Dirty Politics: Rats Flee Sinking Ship

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I shall get the pop corn and soda’s ready by the 40 ft container load.
Play with Antimatter in the hope it doesnt go off in your face as it seems if this does pan out will

Professor Mayhem's avatarSlightly Left of Centre

The police “raid” of Nicky Hager’s house searching for evidence on the identity of Rawshark prompted some in the know to come forward to the cops about what they knew.

Without giving names for fear of prejudicing the case against certain individuals, a source close to the action from the left has advised that the police have been speaking to several people with direct knowledge of both the hacking and the motivations behind it.

“Those involved have been shitting themselves ever since Hager’s stuff got seized.” the source told Slightly Left of Centre this afternoon.

There are a few in the firing line who were looking pretty smug before and just after the now infamous “Moment of Truth” debacle, which turned out to be a more than hour long advert for Kim Dotcom’s latest Mega service, who are now feeling rather hot under the collar. Slightly Left understands…

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