Manukau vs Tonga
The NZ Herald had a story yesterday on the division in Manukau City Council over the Mayor unilaterally approving sending staff to Tonga to help rebuild their capital after the riots.
While the story is balanced in that it talks to both camps, it fails to mention what I regard as the key aspect of the story. For that you need to go to a blog.
There you find out that the town planners being sent to Tonga are rather needed back home. You see the Council reports it only processed 50% of resource consents within the regulatory deadlines . That’s an appalling figure – only half done within the time set down in law!
Now if they were processing 95% of applications within the legal time limit, one might be more open to helping out Tonga, but when they are so appallingly failing in their own city within their own statutory deadlines, that makes it a no brainer to not remove essential staff.
January 25th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
I don’t know what it is with Barry. Ratepayers have told him time and time again – stick to the core services, charge us fair rates and stop trying to build monuments to yourself. Alas each and every year he continues to turn around and us the fingers. I don’t whether he is trying to punish his critics, he is really thick, or he truly thinks he is king, but it really is unfathomable what goes on in his, and indeed the council staff’s minds.
Although he obviously likes to play Mr Nice Guy to the Pacific community – it is not his place to do so.
I’d love to be a fly on the wall at the meeting with councillors, but I suspect it will be yet another fizzer.
January 25th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
The Tongans burn down their own capital city (their only city, also) and Manukau ratepayers pay? Typical.
January 25th, 2007 at 7:42 pm
Planners are only one cog in the consent approval process. There are the building surveyors, development engineers and so on. They could be hold ups as well.Even if its a resource consent , there may be arborists involved.
Even so people lodging consents leave out important details which only slows the process as it has to be put off till later. This isnt helped by the councils over using the ‘ send us more information’ escape clause.