ATEED Head "Living the Life of Riley"

16 NOVEMBER 2016

ATEED Chief, Brett O’Riley, needs to pull his head in and stop defending the $500,000 of ratepayer money spent on a new slogan for Auckland City, or find another job, says that Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance. The ratepayer group is hitting back after Mr O’Riley publicly defended the spending, despite criticism from political and community leaders, including new Mayor, Phil Goff.

Jo Holmes, a spokesperson for the Ratepayers’ Alliance, says: “The head of ATEED is giving the middle finger to Mayor, Councillors, and ratepayers of Auckland. What we are seeing is a power struggle by the empire-building bureaucrats like Brett O’Riley and those who want Auckland Council to focus on core services."

“It’s time for Phil Goff to pull Mr O’Riley into line, sack him, or at the very least slash ATEED’s budget so this wasteful beast is starved from wasting so much of our money."

The 'Living the Life of Riley' on the ratepayer dollar attitude appears to come from the top with Stephen Town, Auckland Council's CEO, telling newly elected Councillors and Local Board members at the Governance Symposium that they needed to be telling Aucklanders 'better stories' so that the public 'learned to better appreciate all the good work Council does'.

"Who do these people think they are?” asks Ms Holmes. "It expresses an attitude of 'The plebs are dumb - we are fabulous - let's spend more of their money telling them.’ It is spin over substance."

ENDS

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