Includes a 5,000 person survey Today the Governing Body meets to adopt the draft 2015-2025 Long Term Plan for consultation early next year. The podcast gives a quick summary … Continue reading Governing Body to Adopt Long Term Plan Draft For Consultation
More and more projects being shunted from the Long Term Plan I have already reported back in November that some public transport projects were being used as potential political … Continue reading More Projects as Political Weapons to the Long Term Plan?
Governing Body set to adopt draft for our consultation As noted earlier this morning the Auckland Council Governing Body will meet for the final time this year and adopt … Continue reading Governing Body December Agenda – Covering the Long Term Plan
So Option A or Option B? As I noted in my Governing Body Agenda to Set LTP Consultation post the Governing Body of Auckland Council will on Thursday set in motion … Continue reading Just 5,000 to be Surveyed on Transport Funding Options
How will we be consulted On Thursday the Auckland Council Governing Body will meet for the final time this year. In this final but crucial meeting though the … Continue reading Governing Body Agenda to Set LTP Consultation
Story has appeared in the Main Stream Media I have noted both from Transport Blog, and the Manukau Courier (online) that there is indeed a situation with both Otahuhu … Continue reading Updates on the Manukau and Otahuhu Transport Interchange Situation
After Councillor Cameron Brewer was flinging around assumptions about correspondence between the Auditor General and Auckland Council I decided to file an Official Information Act request with the Office of the Controller and Auditor General to see if there was any correspondence that could be found to substantiate Brewer’s claims.
This was the OIA I sent:
December 09, 2014
Dear Office of the Controller and Auditor-General,
I am aware that Audit New Zealand audited the Auckland Council
Draft Long Term Plan 2015-2025 in which Audit NZ through its audit
has stated: that owing to circumstances it would be prudent of
Auckland Council to push back the City Rail Link start date from
2015/2016 to another date owing to uncommitted funding by
Government prior to 2020.
My information act request centres around correspondence between
Auckland Council and your Office in relation to the audit of the
2015-2025 LTP and/or the City Rail Link start date situation.
What if any correspondence was had between Audit New Zealand, the
Office of the Controller and Auditor-General, and Auckland Council
before and after Audit NNZ carried out its audit of the Long Term
Plan draft.
If there was any correspondence can it be released into the public
domain please as we have confusion coming from Auckland Council
specifically our elected representatives on whether there was
correspondence that either lead to or came as a result from Audit
NZ auditing the draft Long Term Plan.
Yours faithfully,
Ben Ross
……
And this is the reply I got back today (which was very fast):
December 10, 2014
Kia ora Ben,
Thank you for your query. Auckland Council and Audit New Zealand’s correspondence is part of an ongoing audit process. On 18 December an audit opinion will be issued concluding this process.
The Auditor-General is not subject to the Official Information Act. But as noted above, you will not need it as the opinion will be made public when it is finalised.
Ngā mihi,
——
And there where have it in that I learnt something new insofar as I can not OIA the Auditor General.
In any case though my OIA was answered satisfactorily and we will see that opinion on the 18th – the same day the Governing Body meets for the final time this year.
My thanks to the Auditor General’s office for a very prompt reply 🙂
Just In:
After debating – well relitigating four years of previous debate the Governing Body in an extraordinary session of Council has agreed by a vote of 14-6 (one absent) for the main City Rail Link project to start 2018. That is Option Two of the recommendations per the agenda (below).
As for the Notice of Motions I called for well they didn’t happen (was to be expected but tried) so will try again in the Long Term Plan submission rounds early next year.
The debate itself which dragged from 1:30 to 4pm and should have realistically taken 45 minutes was absolute torture and shows the lack of capacity some of our elected representatives have in that Governing Body. The sole purpose of that debate today was to vote for Option Two and work out funding arrangements to satisfy the Auditor General’s concerns she has raised over the situation. NOT to push a personal barrow from the last four years and especially since the Government has agreed to the City Rail Link in the first place.
So yep again the Governing Body did screw up a debate and continue on its history path of being ineffectual as a collective. Which is a damned shame as we do have some fine and smart individual Councillors in there.
Bring on 2016!
Amendment to CRL Start Date in the Long Term Plan
That is the choice at the Governing Body today I have been plugging away at this issue since the presser came out on Friday but it is too important … Continue reading Respect our Intelligence and Collaborate/Empower Us OR Insult Us With More Tokenism
On Tuesday the Governing Body will meet in an extraordinary session to work through the amendment the Mayor will be tabling around the City Rail Link
The Presser from the Mayoral Office on the Situation:
Following discussions with Audit NZ, the Mayor is proposing an amendment in Council’s draft Long-term Plan 2015-2025 on the timing for construction of Auckland’s number one transport priority – the City Rail Link (CRL).
In its draft budget, Council has the CRL project commencing in 2015/16, based on an assumption government’s funding contribution for the project would also start next year, five years earlier than government has so far indicated.
On Tuesday 9 December, council will consider changing the assumption of timing of the government contribution to 2018/19. This will mean enablement works of $280 million will still take place in the first three years of the plan, but construction will not start until 2018/19. This will also delay the completion date to 2023.
Mayor Len Brown says:
“We have a track record of success with central government when it comes to the CRL – we have moved them from a position of total opposition to one of commitment for funding half the project from the year 2020,” says Mayor Len Brown.
“Yes, we still have to work with government on final timing, but I’m confident we can come to an agreement and get on and get this job done.
“I understand why Audit NZ feel that we need to take a more conservative approach to our financial projections and I am proposing that we develop the LTP based on a later timing of government contribution.”
Public consultation on the draft LTP begins January 23 next year. The final plan is due for adoption June 30, 2015.
—-ends—-
Now our Deputy Mayor did say this in response:
City RailLink to be put back by a couple of years. Disappointed that the government are taking so long to catch up with the Auckland reality which is that the link is vital to the economic future of our region. 30 years of waiting have made the 2-3 year delay tolerable but we have work to do with the relevant ministers to get the timing and the funding sorted.
….a deadend train station cannot generate the PT numbers without more trains in service! Auckland is 1/3 of New Zealand time the government treated us fairly.
My response was this:
Sorry to say Penny but the 2018 main project start date has long been predicted. Regardless of having the engineering capacity ready (which according to NZTA is 2018 any how by the looks of it) the extra three years would allow the financials that werent tolls or extra taxes to be sorted.
Recommendation: Pass a Notice of Motion on Tuesday that would allow no preference in funding options as “suggested” by the Council. But rather allow the ratepayers to pick an option of their own choice or creation (or even a do nothing) and the Governing Body to consider them all then put in place for the LTP in July next year.
Recommendation 2: Pass a Notice of Motion to overrule the Finance and Performance Committee in selling Lot 59 land in Manukau. Hold on to that land and allow the Development Auckland CCO to decide in September 2015 when it is onstream. I have a LGOIMA away with Council in anycase around the Manukau Interchange any how to see what the status of it is seeming AT is conflicted in either building it next year or having it delayed until 2021 owing to “budget cuts”
Note none of this disables the progress of the enabling works Downtown which should be budgeted for by now. But rather the main project in line with expectations and getting the actual alternative funding sources properly sorted (that yes I have presented on at the ADC in October)
Those Notice of Motions would respect the intelligence of the citizenry and allow us to decide how WE are to fund these transport projects. NOT what the Mayor wants and tries to shimmy on us through a perceived option of choice which is nothing but tokenism.
So if any Councillor has their wits about them they would introduce those Notice of Motions tomorrow and get them passed. Or Council will find a very hostile City come March next year when the Long Term Plan submissions close.
The Government has effectively come to the party, the Auditor General has made her ruling to which Council must oblige. Now respect our intelligence and allow us to choose the funding mechanisms freely seeming we are the ones in the end paying for it…
Talking Southern Auckland 