by Keith Johnson
On reading through a sample of the supporting documentation sent to me by the Wellington City Council in response to my Official Information Act request, I am struck again by the degree to which financial data and financial management issues are folded away from prying eyes – from potential view by both the Councillors and Mayor, and the public at large. Read more »

by Keith Johnson
Although it has been a bit like pulling teeth with a garlic crusher, I have finally managed to obtain a decent series of figures from the Wellington City Council [by way of an Official Information Request] on the impact of its rates rebalancing policy on residential ratepayers. Read more »

by Lindsay Shelton
A year ago the NZ Transport Agency employed 24 technical experts from 23 consultancy companies to write reports supporting its plan to build a flyover at the Basin Reserve. At the same time, the Agency set a timetable for the project. It planned to lodge its resource consent applications “at the end of 2012 or early in 2013.” But the applications have not been lodged. Read more »

Wellington.Scoop
The city council may have reasons for wanting to replace Ticketek. For a start, there’s the extra cost that has to be paid every time anyone books a ticket. Read more »

by Peter Harris
Should all council services be done in-house, or out-sourced? There is no automatic “correct” answer. Read more »

CounterSpin by Tom Frewen
“How do you want to pay for these people — with your rates or your taxes?”
That was the response to my suggestion that the local council contract out the job of mowing lawns around its old folks’ homes. Read more »

Wellington.Scoop
When the CEO of Positively Wellington Venues, Glenys Coughlan, appeared before the city council’s performance subcommittee on Monday, she had the chance to tell councillors about the deteriorating finances of the organisation that she is running. Yet she did not. Read more »

by Lindsay Shelton
The DominionPost has started to realise the extent that a flyover at the Basin Reserve would be damaging to Wellington’s urban design. On Saturday it editorialised: “The flyover is not beautiful and no politician will want it as her memorial.” Read more »

by Lindsay Shelton
The Wellington City Council has owned the Embassy Theatre for years. So why can’t it fix the lights? Read more »

by Lindsay Shelton
The Transport Agency’s influence on Wellington is not only shown by its insistence on building a flyover at the Basin Reserve. Other demands from the Agency were revealed on Thursday when city councillors asked why 27 CitiOps staff were being sacked and their jobs were being outsourced. Read more »

by Lindsay Shelton
“I didn’t even know it’s happening … I think the first thing is councillors don’t even know about it.” Read more »

by Lindsay Shelton
Te Papa is working unusually hard to promote its new art displays, which opened to the public on Good Friday. The displays are advertised on two banners at the front of the building, and there’ve been full page advertisements in the papers. Read more »

by Elaine Engman
Most Wellingtonians rightly believe that the Basin Reserve flyover will be a very expensive eyesore. Some have accepted it with the idea that it will improve traffic flows. But after a careful examination of the Transport Agency’s working plans, it seems obvious that the flyover will not improve overall traffic flows, but will more likely make rush hour traffic worse and cause more accidents. Read more »

by Lindsay Shelton
If any councillors had looked at the information sent by the Architectural Centre before last week’s Basin flyover debate, they would have learnt that part of Option X is based on the successful redevelopment of Trafalgar Square in London. Where no one suggested that there should be a flyover. Read more »

Opinion by the Architectural Centre
Much of the noise currently produced by traffic round the Basin Reserve is mitigated for cricketers by the earth berms which create the Basin’s eastern bank. The Transport Agency’s flyover proposal to lift 260 metres of road eight metres above the ground will exacerbate the traffic noise and will concentrate it along the northern area of the Basin. Read more »

by Mary Varnham
Isn’t it time the Wellington City Council stopped letting the NZ Transport Agency and the mayor of Porirua call the shots on the urban design of our city? Read more »

by Lindsay Shelton
The night before Thursday’s council meeting, seven of Andy Foster’s colleagues believed he would be voting to oppose a flyover at the Basin Reserve. There’d been a lot of back-room discussion. They went into the meeting confident that he would be one of the group of eight who would continue to oppose the flyover – as he’d done in December. Read more »

by Lindsay Shelton
By one vote, the Wellington City Council today gave up its fight against Transport Agency plans to build a flyover at the Basin Reserve. Justin Lester had moved an amendment that the council “not support the flyover.” The vote was tied, seven for and seven against. Then Andy Foster used his casting vote to kill the opposition. Observers said the concrete bridge across Kent and Cambridge Terraces will become known as “Foster’s Flyover.” Read more »