No great surprise
The Herald reports:
Auckland Museum director Vanda Vitali, and the museum trust board are embroiled in a performance dispute, and both sides have hired top lawyers.
Auckland mayors have also become involved to “save” the director from the board, although Auckland City Mayor John Banks said the dispute appeared to be the “beginning of the end for Vanda Vitali at the Auckland War Memorial Museum”.
Dr Vitali, who has been at the centre of several controversies since being appointed museum director in September 2007, refused to discuss the dispute. She has hired John Haigh, QC.
Board chairman Dr William Randall said the board was conducting a performance review with Dr Vitali that involved a fair amount of rigorous debate over matters of concern to the board.
“It’s the frequency of them that gets to us,” he said.
“We started with the restructure – that got a lot of negative publicity – we then went on to the Bomber Command issue, then there was Passchendaele, then we had the Hillary issue and subsequent to that was the PSA issue on unions.”
There have been so many issues, I am not surprised there is a dispute and potential loss of confidence. However hard to judge from the outside if this is mainly just resistance to a tough management style, or if Vitali is making errors of judgement.
December 9th, 2009 at 7:24 am
Think you summed it up well DPF. One could say that Vanda Vitali should be shot with a ball of her own shit……
December 9th, 2009 at 7:50 am
Interesting that this has come out. If the rupture between governance and the Director is this bad, it gives a lot more weight to the long list of complaints about her approach. She has been good at getting more useage out of the place, with the night shows etc, but I haven’t heard anyone praise her management style. Long-standing locals have lost their jobs in the restructuring and overseas appointments made, not in itself a terrible thing, but was there really no talent in NZ for these jobs? She gutted the place of decades of institutional memory.
She seems to now have a bunker mentality.I suspect Banks is right.
December 9th, 2009 at 8:48 am
A tough management style seems to be spilling over into a hardball attitude involving donors of materials (eg the Hilary case) and a hardball attitude gainst the Trust board.
I wonder who has been lobbying Auckland mayors to try and save her bacon, interesting that John Banks has not taken the bait.
IMO the Hilary incident alone would have been sufficient for the Board to question whether whether they had the necessary trust and confidence in her. A CEO doing the job properly would have never let it escalate to the point where the Prime Minister had to get involved.
I agree with DPF, is there no NZ talent for top jobs? IMO there are higher risks with appointing overseas people to jobs, because it is so easy for them to conceal shortcomings or unsuccessful performance in previous positions and it is pushing salary levels above what is needed for competent people. It is funny that a new CEO can readily change the top level management structure and quite easily replace top management, but a board has a far harder job to deal with an ‘out of step CEO.
Was the revised ‘admission charge’ system to exempt Aucklanders from these ‘charges’ a sop to the mayors? Aucklanders do not have to pay to see Te Papa, parliament, etc it is unfair to expect those from Wellington to pay admission to auckland attractions when Aucklanders are exempt.
December 9th, 2009 at 10:28 am
Cut the Candian loose. She has no grasp of our nation, culture or values.
December 9th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
peterwn:
December 9th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
D’oh. /blockquote fail.
December 9th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
We called into the Auckland museum two weeks ago for a coffee. Then afterwards with 10 minutes to kill, my wife said “let’s have a look around”. I said we weren’t paying $10 for a 10 minute distraction after paying $20 for dry sandwiches and bitter coffee.
But the lawyer in her pointed out that the “so-called” $5 admission fee is actually a donation, and as Auckland ratepayers we were already funding the museum so we should not feel obliged to make any further payment. So we just walked in past the cashier, past her icy stare.
Now from last week, to celebrate the museum’s 80th anniversary it “will not be asking for an admission contribution from the Auckland region’s residents”. (http://www.aucklandmuseum.com/1310/i-am-free-for-aucklanders)
But to qualify for this you have take along ID and also proof of residence (like a bill with your name and address on it). And while this is happening, the “suggested donation” requested from non-Aucklanders has been doubled to $10 each!
Is this sort of mickey-mouse revenue raising the brainchild of Dr Vitali?
What a complete nonsense it is. As we proved two weeks ago, admission is actually already free, but over summer you get to enjoy “guilt-free” no-cost admission (sans icy-stare) by taking ID and proof of residence along with you.
What a farce. To paraphrase the Clayton’s advert, “it’s the free admission you enjoy, when you already enjoy free admission”.
December 9th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Camryn – Re free admission for locals – I am unaware of ANY attraction in the Wellington region, whether funded by Government, local ratepayers or privately which lets locals in free but charges ‘outsiders.’
Such a differential charging regime shows a meanness of spirit in a city and brasses visitors off. Even if Te Papa was the only one, then Aucklanders should remember that they have their hands out left right and centre for Government money expecting taxpayers elsewhere to help pay for running their cities.
December 9th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
Sack her, she didn’t get ANZAC & she didn’t get Sir Ed. Nothing else required to send her home if you ask me.
January 4th, 2010 at 9:52 am
“because it is so easy for them to conceal shortcomings or unsuccessful performance in previous positions ” Boy you can say that again.This woman was a walking nightmare @ the Natural History Museum of L. A. county,I’m sorry she wound up down under.I know I worked there, she was despised by nearly everyone.