November 26, 2024 • 7 mins
There's frustration for some at Wellington City Council, as the city's Long Term Plan is laid out.
Budget cuts were a big part of the discussions - as the city needs to bring in more money after the plan to sell the airport shares fell through.
The Council's proposed demolishing the Botanical Gardens' Begonia House and they plan to chop upgrades for venues and a development of Frank Kitts Park.
Wellington City Councillor Tony Randle says the Golden Mile project was spared - for the time being.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now Wellington City councilors have spent the day arguing amongst
themselves about what to can't out of the city's long
term plan. You'll remember that the plan was initially funded
by a sale of the council's shares in Wellington Airport,
but then that fell through after some councilors changed their minds.
Council has voted in favor of cutting back on its
Cycleway Project a program, rather reducing funding for the Begonia
House and the Botanic Gardens. I think demolishing the thing altogether,
(00:22):
along with other bits and pieces, and there was a
lot of disagreement over whether anything else needed cutting. We
are not going broke to only focus on things that
you never supported in the first place. For cuts is
not brave or bold or progressive decision making. And we
(00:42):
do not have money for capital projects.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
We're already pissing around on stupid cuts here and there
with some of these things that we just shouldn't need
to be doing well.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
I'm hearing from our city community in al Langataki and
our progressive submitters this morning is to stay the course,
keep going, and the next generation will thank.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Us for it.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Counselor Tony Randall proposed the scaling back of the Golden Mile,
but that was voted down and he's with us now, Hey,
Tony Hill, good, thank you. So is the Golden Mile
safe the complete package? Nothing cut out of that.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Well, the Mayor's actually added in the Lampton Key part
of it. So the Golden Mile, or one hundred and
forty million dollars of it, is all still going to
go ahead.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Okay, how much has been cut out of the cycle
ways budget?
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Well, as far as I can tell. The officer said
there was forty million cut, but the numbers to me
don't add up as far as I can tell. In fact,
the cycle way budget has gone up by about ten million.
What but yeah, really really, but we've got information that's
been so late it's very very hard to check it.
(01:47):
So we're sort of passing a budget that we're still
a bit unclear about.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Well, this is not what's supposed to happen. This is
why the observer is there. Have you guys not gone
to the observer and been like, help us out.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
The observers is still observing his feet. I've met We
met Lindsay yesterday and it was a very positive meeting
and he's his brief is really to watch and advise,
but we've still got to get ahere and make these decisions.
And that's what happened today.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Tony, I am alarmed that you guys are passing budgets
where you're not sure of the figures. How is this happening?
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Look, it's it's a it's a very truncated process. We
got the actual figures in the spreadsheet version on Friday.
Officers were still passing back information as late as five
pm yesterday, and then this morning we went through the
whole thing and decided on literally hundreds of millions of
dollars worth of funding.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Okay, now is this a done deal? Like, is this
thing set in stone, You've saved enough, you can pass it,
it's going to go through or are we going to
have more snacks?
Speaker 2 (02:52):
It's very hard to tell that the aim was to
restore the five hundred million dollars worth of emergency money
that that officers set we needed because we didn't sell
the airport years. But the mayor has added in a
whole lot of spending that the officers advised to be
cut to meet that target. The officers advised that we
wouldn't meet the target till years nine or ten, which
(03:13):
is like almost and they never never say while we
really haven't done the hard cuts yet, and I'm just
worried that there's not going to pass the audit when
the auditors look at it saying what's prudent? And have
we got enough emergency money?
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Okay, so you guys have done enough as far as
you're concerned as a council, it's about whether the auditors
think you've done enough? Is that right? Like this is
the end of the council involvement in this.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
No, the office are going to go away and report
on the amended you know, the decisions we made today,
and they're going to report back on the seventeenth of December.
Hopefully we'll get some workshop work before then to find
out how that we were. The numbers do add up,
and I but I suspect they don't, because you know,
we're still doing We added money into the Golden Mile
(03:58):
project from what the officers have. Yes, we didn't postpone,
for example, the organics. We didn't. We didn't actually cut
the cycle ways by a significant amount. And you know
when you add up, well, I think that I think
they've increased it and the only things we've cut a
sort of ten million dollars off the facilities management and
(04:21):
a few other things. If you look at the list
of what the mes amendments were, they were largely adding
in more spending. And so I'm worried we haven't made it.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Tony, is somebody dicking you guys around here with figures?
Because I feel like the council, the council officials are
dicking you guys around. They keep on changing the figures.
It feels dodgy to me.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
I don't want to blame the officers one hundred percent,
but it's very frustrating to raise questions and not have
them answered until just before the meeting. I know they've
been working really really hard.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
But yeah, but angler I mean, okay, you can make
excuses them. Is you have an existing relationship and I don't.
But how did we go from needing to find two
six hundred million or something to needing to find five
hundred million to today apparently only needing to find two
hundred and eighty million Like this, this fills dodgy.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Well, I've got to go back to the nervous emotion
when the officers said this is the consequences of not
selling the airport.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
She is.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
They said, by years five or six, we need to
have five hundred million, yeah, you know, below our own limit,
or a billion dollars overall.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Yeah. But then today apparently Tory goes isn't fine, it's
only two hundred and eighty. Well that's a massive difference.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
I know, I know, and it's because counselors do not
like to cut projects. This council, especially and dis Council
I don't think, has cut enough projects. Sony, what do
you find out?
Speaker 1 (05:43):
What's your background? What did you do before you were
in the council. I was.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
I was a business analyst who write business cases and
you know, ran it projects.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Okay, so if the business guy, the business case guy
who deals with numbers is thinks that there's something weird
going on here and the numbers don't add up, we
should be why worried.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
I'm worried. Look, a lot of councilors are very happy
with what happened today. I'm not happy. I'm also not
happy because this means that the Golden Mile was not
going to be subject to public consultation anymore. I think that,
you know, it's quite clear that as at the moment
they're going to sign contracts and start construction in January.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
You guys, honestly, I feel like I feel sorry for you, Tony.
Thank you. I really appreciate your running us through that,
Tony Randall, Wellington City Council. So there we go. I mean, jeez,
if you need it, if you were, like Simeon Brown
did not really have a case for bringing in the
Wellington Observer, tell me what you think now, this sounds
like a shambles hither as late as five pm last evening. Wow,
that's commitment to the cause working until normal hours, isn't it. Well,
(06:41):
that's what it's like at the Wellington City Council headquarters
with the officials. Oh, I tell you what. Tony doesn't
want to say it, but I'll say it to you.
Those officials, I wouldn't trust them as far as I
can throw them. They've got an agenda here about what
they want and what they don't want, and they prepare
to screw the scrum constantly. And I reckon that they
realize I reckon, I'm starting to form the you and
this is in my opinion, so no one gets sued.
(07:03):
I have to say that I have a feeling that
they know that a lot of counselors are not sit
somewhere between being somewhat financially illiterate and also just a
little bit confused by numbers. Like if Tony Randall, the
numbers guy, is confused by what's going on, then everybody
sits somewhere in that ballpark, don't they. So their officials
(07:24):
just throw all kinds of numbers at them. Here's of
moving facets, different numbers, differ numbers, differ numbers. Just confuse them,
get what they want out of it. I think the
whole thing looks dodgy as and I'm gonna yeah, I
think we're I don't think we've seen the end of this,
by the looks of things. For more from Hither Duplassy
Allen Drive, listen live to news talks it'd be from
four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
Now Wellington City councilors have spent the day arguing amongst
themselves about what to can't out of the city's long
term plan. You'll remember that the plan was initially funded
by a sale of the council's shares in Wellington Airport,
but then that fell through after some councilors changed their minds.
Council has voted in favor of cutting back on its
Cycleway Project a program, rather reducing funding for the Begonia
House and the Botanic Gardens. I think demolishing the thing altogether,
(00:22):
along with other bits and pieces, and there was a
lot of disagreement over whether anything else needed cutting. We
are not going broke to only focus on things that
you never supported in the first place. For cuts is
not brave or bold or progressive decision making. And we
(00:42):
do not have money for capital projects.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
We're already pissing around on stupid cuts here and there
with some of these things that we just shouldn't need
to be doing well.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
I'm hearing from our city community in al Langataki and
our progressive submitters this morning is to stay the course,
keep going, and the next generation will thank.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Us for it.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Counselor Tony Randall proposed the scaling back of the Golden Mile,
but that was voted down and he's with us now, Hey,
Tony Hill, good, thank you. So is the Golden Mile
safe the complete package? Nothing cut out of that.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Well, the Mayor's actually added in the Lampton Key part
of it. So the Golden Mile, or one hundred and
forty million dollars of it, is all still going to
go ahead.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Okay, how much has been cut out of the cycle
ways budget?
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Well, as far as I can tell. The officer said
there was forty million cut, but the numbers to me
don't add up as far as I can tell. In fact,
the cycle way budget has gone up by about ten million.
What but yeah, really really, but we've got information that's
been so late it's very very hard to check it.
(01:47):
So we're sort of passing a budget that we're still
a bit unclear about.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Well, this is not what's supposed to happen. This is
why the observer is there. Have you guys not gone
to the observer and been like, help us out.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
The observers is still observing his feet. I've met We
met Lindsay yesterday and it was a very positive meeting
and he's his brief is really to watch and advise,
but we've still got to get ahere and make these decisions.
And that's what happened today.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Tony, I am alarmed that you guys are passing budgets
where you're not sure of the figures. How is this happening?
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Look, it's it's a it's a very truncated process. We
got the actual figures in the spreadsheet version on Friday.
Officers were still passing back information as late as five
pm yesterday, and then this morning we went through the
whole thing and decided on literally hundreds of millions of
dollars worth of funding.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Okay, now is this a done deal? Like, is this
thing set in stone, You've saved enough, you can pass it,
it's going to go through or are we going to
have more snacks?
Speaker 2 (02:52):
It's very hard to tell that the aim was to
restore the five hundred million dollars worth of emergency money
that that officers set we needed because we didn't sell
the airport years. But the mayor has added in a
whole lot of spending that the officers advised to be
cut to meet that target. The officers advised that we
wouldn't meet the target till years nine or ten, which
(03:13):
is like almost and they never never say while we
really haven't done the hard cuts yet, and I'm just
worried that there's not going to pass the audit when
the auditors look at it saying what's prudent? And have
we got enough emergency money?
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Okay, so you guys have done enough as far as
you're concerned as a council, it's about whether the auditors
think you've done enough? Is that right? Like this is
the end of the council involvement in this.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
No, the office are going to go away and report
on the amended you know, the decisions we made today,
and they're going to report back on the seventeenth of December.
Hopefully we'll get some workshop work before then to find
out how that we were. The numbers do add up,
and I but I suspect they don't, because you know,
we're still doing We added money into the Golden Mile
(03:58):
project from what the officers have. Yes, we didn't postpone,
for example, the organics. We didn't. We didn't actually cut
the cycle ways by a significant amount. And you know
when you add up, well, I think that I think
they've increased it and the only things we've cut a
sort of ten million dollars off the facilities management and
(04:21):
a few other things. If you look at the list
of what the mes amendments were, they were largely adding
in more spending. And so I'm worried we haven't made it.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Tony, is somebody dicking you guys around here with figures?
Because I feel like the council, the council officials are
dicking you guys around. They keep on changing the figures.
It feels dodgy to me.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
I don't want to blame the officers one hundred percent,
but it's very frustrating to raise questions and not have
them answered until just before the meeting. I know they've
been working really really hard.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
But yeah, but angler I mean, okay, you can make
excuses them. Is you have an existing relationship and I don't.
But how did we go from needing to find two
six hundred million or something to needing to find five
hundred million to today apparently only needing to find two
hundred and eighty million Like this, this fills dodgy.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Well, I've got to go back to the nervous emotion
when the officers said this is the consequences of not
selling the airport.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
She is.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
They said, by years five or six, we need to
have five hundred million, yeah, you know, below our own limit,
or a billion dollars overall.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Yeah. But then today apparently Tory goes isn't fine, it's
only two hundred and eighty. Well that's a massive difference.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
I know, I know, and it's because counselors do not
like to cut projects. This council, especially and dis Council
I don't think, has cut enough projects. Sony, what do
you find out?
Speaker 1 (05:43):
What's your background? What did you do before you were
in the council. I was.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
I was a business analyst who write business cases and
you know, ran it projects.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Okay, so if the business guy, the business case guy
who deals with numbers is thinks that there's something weird
going on here and the numbers don't add up, we
should be why worried.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
I'm worried. Look, a lot of councilors are very happy
with what happened today. I'm not happy. I'm also not
happy because this means that the Golden Mile was not
going to be subject to public consultation anymore. I think that,
you know, it's quite clear that as at the moment
they're going to sign contracts and start construction in January.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
You guys, honestly, I feel like I feel sorry for you, Tony.
Thank you. I really appreciate your running us through that,
Tony Randall, Wellington City Council. So there we go. I mean, jeez,
if you need it, if you were, like Simeon Brown
did not really have a case for bringing in the
Wellington Observer, tell me what you think now, this sounds
like a shambles hither as late as five pm last evening. Wow,
that's commitment to the cause working until normal hours, isn't it. Well,
(06:41):
that's what it's like at the Wellington City Council headquarters
with the officials. Oh, I tell you what. Tony doesn't
want to say it, but I'll say it to you.
Those officials, I wouldn't trust them as far as I
can throw them. They've got an agenda here about what
they want and what they don't want, and they prepare
to screw the scrum constantly. And I reckon that they
realize I reckon, I'm starting to form the you and
this is in my opinion, so no one gets sued.
(07:03):
I have to say that I have a feeling that
they know that a lot of counselors are not sit
somewhere between being somewhat financially illiterate and also just a
little bit confused by numbers. Like if Tony Randall, the
numbers guy, is confused by what's going on, then everybody
sits somewhere in that ballpark, don't they. So their officials
(07:24):
just throw all kinds of numbers at them. Here's of
moving facets, different numbers, differ numbers, differ numbers. Just confuse them,
get what they want out of it. I think the
whole thing looks dodgy as and I'm gonna yeah, I
think we're I don't think we've seen the end of this,
by the looks of things. For more from Hither Duplassy
Allen Drive, listen live to news talks it'd be from
four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
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