Christchurch Council Circus … Continued

Hugh Pavletich

Performance Urban Planning

Christchurch

New Zealand

31 August 2014

In 2010 the UK Daily Mail investigated the antics of a major bureaucratically bloated London Local Authority and reported with THE GREAT INERTIA SECTOR .

It makes entertaining reading for those not directly dealing with bureaucratically bloated and dysfunctional Local Authorities … but is no joke for those having to deal with them.

Particularly for people in Christchurch, who have lived through years of earthquakes since 4 September 2010 … some four years ago … but where the persistent political and bureaucratic incompetence has inflicted greater suffering and stress than the earthquakes themselves … unnecessarily.

Persistent institutional failure … SUFFOCATING BUREAUCRACY & FAILED INSTITUTIONS .

Christchurch commercial property interests are the latest to complain bitterly about the persistent failures of the Christchurch City Council, as Liz McDonald, Property Editor with the local The Press explains with CONSENTS NIGHTMARE HOLDING UP REBUILD ..

It is a nightmare.

The Building Control Unit is still severely dysfunctional. As expected, the appointment of Crown Manager Doug Martin has not worked.

Not surprisingly, the smaller adjoining Units of Local Government at Waimakariri and Selwyn are performing adequately … as the smaller Units of Christchurch did pre forced Local Government amalgamation in 1989.

An earlier Central Government “Band-Aid” solution” occurred when Kerry Marshall was appointed by the Government late January 2012, following the public anger at the $68,000 pay increase for then Council Chief Executive Tony Marryatt.

The Government panicked, in a vain endeavour to save then Mayor Bob Parker and his “A Team” and diffuse the Peoples Protest looming a few days later … as TV One (video) reported at the time … GOVERNMENT PUTS COUNCIL ON NOTICE .

9 of 13 elected representatives were replaced at the October 2013 Local Government election.

The 4,000+ Peoples Protest occurred 1 February 2012, with its clear demands set out in a LETTER TO HON DR NICK SMITH .

These demands were amplified mid-year with … CHRISTCHURCH: THE WAY FORWARD .

Early 2012 former Christchurch Central MP Brendon Burns made it clear within a The Press Opinion … SHINING A LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS …

“For this city to best recover from its seismic nightmare, the process of decision- making needs to be inverted to truly empower communities. Such a radical change is very difficult to accept for anyone - of any political persuasion - who happens to be in power.”

“To date, the required response is tokenistic. A top-down command and control system may be appropriate in the days after a disaster but not in a recovery which will take years. Among the ultimate victims will be those who talk the talk but don't walk the walk when it comes to true community engagement. Just look at the Christchurch City Council.”

Within the comments stream of Liz McDonalds article “Consents Nightmare Holding Up Rebuild”, Simon2 makes the following comment …

" (Peter) Sparrow (Building Control Manager) acknowledged the validity of the industry concerns, but believed matters were improving. He agreed the speed of commercial consents should be "much much" better, and that a change of staff culture was needed. "But it will take time to turn that around". I doubt Peter Sparrow realises how bizarre his comment is, he will be one of the staff whose culture needs to change but it never will. Right throughout CCC is the same culture, they are control freaks, they are right, everyone outside is the enemy. None of this has anything to do with the earthquakes, the culture really took hold under Vicki Buck and Garry Moore `when the "People's Republic of ChCh" nonsense started, then we had the Parker/Marryatt shambles where those 2 ran the city. All the earthquakes did was shine a light on this culture so all ratepayers could see it. Nothing will ever change, CCC is incapable of change so will just keep acting as a roadblock holding this city back. Add in Cera which is made up of the same type of people, u really wonder why anyone is bothering to try and make progress is ChCh.”

There are two types of Local Government in this world … the small and the bad.

Queensland has Local Authority de-amalgamations underway, as recently reported by the Queensland State Government …

“The Honourable David Crisafulli MP, Minister for Local Government, Community Recovery and Resilience announced that de-amalgamations would proceed in four Queensland local government areas, namely:

• Noosa Shire Council de-amalgamating from the Sunshine Coast Regional Council

• Livingstone Shire Council de-amalgamating from the Rockhampton Regional Council

• Mareeba Shire Council de-amalgamating from the Tablelands Regional Council

• Douglas Shire Council de-amalgamating from the Cairns Regional Council”

The only question is … when are Christchurch City Council Mayor Lianne Dalziel and her team … with new Chief Executive Dr Karleen Edwards … going to restructure the Council from the dysfunctional centralized structure to the “One City – Many Communities” model … as promised ?

ENDS

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