Tag: Isthmus

Power Crisis Over? Teeth Gnashing Begins

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However, will the result  be the same as 1998?

 

And so the Isthmus is no longer powerless with power restored to all but a few hundred homes as of this morning.

For full details (and saving me repeating a lot of it) you can read the Herald article here (as well as see the damage): http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11338075

 

And so with the Crisis over and the response teams doing a very fine job (and so I send thanks), the job of teeth gnashing (the inquiry) will begin.

However, I do wonder if the inquiry will be somewhat pointless as unless it was truly an Act of God that set the cables alight we I am suspicious again of: Failure in planning, governance and investment.

From what I can see from the Herald this morning in the above linked article it seems already it might be just that.

 

Let me put it this way. Go watch the second Matrix Movie where they attempt to enter the building where Neo will find the Architect. They need to shut the power down to the building or the self destruct triggers. So they blow up a power station which initially causes the black out until the smart grid reroutes power very quickly. The back up was shut down manually after that but that was caused by man-made (well Niobe) interference.

Point?

Large advanced cities have smart grids that reroute power in the event such as what Auckland just went through. Granted that Otahuhu Power Station and substation got reinforced and that the new cabling rerouted power back to the City Centre however, Penrose is still a choke point and it again (last was 2012) blacked out a large portion of the Isthmus. After the 1998 and especially after 2006 sagas this should not happen of we truly invested in a true smart grid system. AND we should not be paying a cent more on our power bills to get such a system. No Prime Minister, your advice should have been to tell the AECT (read the Herald article on who they are) to forego the $300m dividend paid out to consumers for five years and have that dividend money invested back into the grid until we have a true smart grid.

 

However, knowing New Zealand we will do the teeth gnashing and within three years maybe another blackout on the Isthmus…

Consider ourselves lucky we don’t operation commercial nuclear power stations…..

 

The Isthmus and Berm Mowing

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Compromise or Harden Up?

 

Must be election time in Auckland. Why? Apart from the fact in front of my keyboard I have my voting papers (for: Mayor, Ward Councillors, Local Board and District Health Board – and which make some depressing reading (the pamphlet of candidate choice is not that inspiring)), the Isthmus is still going on about their berms in front of their properties being mowed.

This stems from a decision on the 2012-2022 Long Term Plan deliberations (the LTP is now operative/in effect) that to save $3.2m from the Council budget, the former Auckland City Council area residents will no longer have their berms mowed by a Council contractor. The Isthmus like: Franklin, Papakura, Manukau, Waitakere, North Shore and Rodney will now have to mow the berm that is in front of their properties.

The rest of the City is wondering what is the Isthmus moaning about when for years if not decades everyone else just mowed their berms when they mowed their lawns. The most common reason I hear from the Isthmus is that the $3.2m of a service cut was not passed on in rates savings. Rather than parts of the Isthmus have been stung with a string of some of the highest rate rises in all of Auckland over the last three years.

 

At the end of the day we can keep going around in circles and most likely tell the Isthmus to harden up and join the rest of us in wider Auckland.

Or we could seek a solution. Councillor Casey and candidate Mark Donnelly both mooted an idea, one that I also submitted on to my submission to the 2012-2022 Long Term Plan. The Solution?

  1. Proper funding of the Local Boards for local services
  2. Allow individual Local Boards to pick whether they want contractors mowing the berms in their area

Basically if a Local Board wanted to pay a contractor of their choice to mow their areas’ berms rather than have the residents do so then they are free to choose. However, the cost would come out of the Local Board’s budget. This means the Local Board would have to decide how to raise the money for this service. The most obvious one would be a targeted rate to pay for the service.

But that way the Local Boards could choose whether they wanted the berms in front of houses mowed by a contractor.

 

While this does not address wider issues such as the 10-10-10 rate rise and loss of earlier berm mowing on the Isthmus it is a remedy to allow Local Boards decide local decisions.

What do you think? Leave your thoughts below

 

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