Otara-Papatoetoe Local Board Wastes Funding

“Local boards around the city are quite rightly attacking Len Brown for cutting their funding to pay for his vanity projects, but when one looks at the activities of the Otara-Papatoetoe local board, I doubt ratepayers will get value for money whomever spends it.”

Affordable Auckland Mayoral candidate Stephen Berry is referring to the Otara Cube, a three metre shipping container installed in 2013 as a temporary art exhibition space by the Manukau Institute of Technology at the Otara bus interchange. The local board has extended the life of the exhibition by giving the project funding until 2018, costing $36,400 according the figures supplied in a press release.

Otara-Papatoetoe Local Board Arts Spokesman Donna Lee is enthusiastic about the project because it helps “integrate arts and culture into the everyday lives of locals.” Berry says, “Otara is a low decile community which means it is even harder for many residents to pay for their rates there than in other parts of Auckland. If they are interested in art they are quite capable of choosing to pay to attend exhibitions of it. The Local Board should not be forcing them to pay for something many will not even see.

“Thirty-six thousand dollars is not an inconsequential sum of money. That money should be spent on the essential public facilities this community needs to thrive. Subsidising the work of a local artist falls far outside the realms of what can be considered core Council business.”

Affordable Auckland’s position on the arts is that as they are not a naturally monopolistic service essential for the functioning of the city they are not a core Council function. Public arts works should be the result of private funding only.

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