My Mayoral plans to control Rates, Debt and Bureaucracy include:

Cancel recent Carbon Zero and Cycleway spending budgets [over $100 million],

Pause Smooth Hill landfill [$94 Million in budget], sending our putrescent waste, [less than 20 of Dunedin total waste stream] to a AB Lime in Winton or Taiko south of Timaru rather than to the hills above Brighton.
This short term as a trail would give us real costs and data to compare with the up-front millions needed to develop Smooth Hill.

Reduce staff costs by consolidating PR and support systems using AI, – information searches, quicker finance tools, decision analysis, comparative contracting, AI planning tools and automatic summaries promise much reduced workloads for DCC and DCHL staff.

Change ideological DCC Land Zoning to effects-based rules to reduce cost of housing sections and industrial land for development, – current zone restrictions do not recognise new technologies that allow off-grid electricity, off-grid small sewerage systems, and better roof water collection that would provide new housing opportunities without overloading existing electricity, water and drainage systems.

Unitary Council to free us from ORC bureaucratic duplication and stagnation, – Both MP Shane Jones and the PM have recently proposed losing Regional Councils as an unnecessary and unaffordable extra layer of bureaucracy. I have been promoting the benefits and cost/time savings of a Unitary Council for over a decade.
I proposed a unanimously agreed Council motion to investigate Unitary pros and cons, but was stifled by CEO Bidrose who did not do her job of carrying out the motion for two years, and then by Party politicians like Cr. Benson-Pope who managed to get Council to revoke the motion.

Sell Aurora and reinvest in diverse funds that will give us a decent return on this Billion$ investment, [unpopular but necessary]
We need to sell Aurora because the DCC is too indebted to keep providing the increasing levels of debt necessary to keep Aurora going and to keep up with Central Otago expansion needs.
Aurora itself is also too indebted itself to be able to raise the finance needed.
Consequently Aurora is worth a lot more to a wealthy investor than it is to Dunedin.
Mayor Radich has recently suggested a sale price between $1 Billion and $1.9 Billion.
What is certain is that we are paying $1 million PER WEEK just in interest costs on a BILLION$ DEBT.
It is no coincidence that the Chair and Deputy Chair of DCC Finance and CCOs along with all the DCHL directors see the sale of Aurora to an organisation that can afford to fund it as vitally necessary.

A reinvestment of Aurora equity in a diverse investment fund soon would be bankable and provide much needed relief from rates increases and current vulnerability to interest rate changes.
If Dunedin waits too long we risk seeing our biggest Company investment nationalised by Central Government for a fraction of it is worth, as Minister Mahuta almost succeeded in doing to our 3 Waters assets under Labour for less than 10% of their value.

Divide remaining companies into Commercial [to get commercial profits] or Community Enterprises,
– A commercial focus for Delta and City Forests would make regular commercial returns more easily available to Council.

Allow daily use of the Stadium to boost local sports, events, and conference use like the Edgar Center, – the delicate Stadium turf is enormously expensive to keep growing and needs weeks between events to recover, limiting use of the main pitch. It also needs airflow so that the Stadium skirts can not be lowered to keep the cold wind out.
A fully artificial turf is necessary if we are to get regular use of the pitch and something back for the 10 – 20 million annual running costs, which must be cut back rather than being bailed out every year by DCC.

New management model to boost number and range of Regent Theatre events/productions, –
The Regent is a big beautiful facility that gets little regular use because of the way it is run causing major promoters to refuse to bring shows there. For further details, talk to local promoter extraordinaire Doug Kamo.

Stop paying DCC Grants facilitators, overseers, managers, administrators etc. and go back to funding Community Projects only, run by volunteers.
DCC Grants run to many millions annually and there have long been questions about what value is achieved. Currently under review.

Freehold Harbourside land to allow development, – most of the Harbourside leasehold land is owned by ORC’s Chalmers Property, and attempts to get them to freehold land to allow Harbourside Development have long failed.
ORC’s Port Otago has also long failed to develop Port Chalmers sufficiently, still not developed inland ports [Port Napier has 3 Inland Ports] for more efficient ship loading after decades of talk, and won’t be ready for the new level of larger container ships that will only stop in one South Island Port, probably Lyttelton despite the seismic vulnerability of all the goods having to go through the one tunnel connecting Christchurch and Lyttelton Harbour.

Stop rate-paid international travel, limit conference travel, stop paying LGNZ SOLGM and any other local government spongers. Very easy savings of hundreds of thousands annually [LGNZ about 150,000 next year].

Sell unused or liability properties like Foulden Maar, Forbury Raceway, and many redundant pieces of DCC land. – the $1 million wasted buying land-locked Foulden Maar and then having to spend $100,000 more to cover it over because of toxic dust and fence it and keep people out has been a scandalous misrepresented waste of money in my view.


Ditto Forbury Raceway $13 million that has already suffered maintenance and vandalism costs with no plan of what to do with it, as the interest cost continues to drain finances.

Fast track business and development proposals, with more flexible compliance and permitted activity culture, – businessmen and developers have often met with me to complain of how difficult it is to build or grow a business in Dunedin compared to other places.
Dunedin Commercial rates are 2.5 times greater than Residential rates for similar services. In Invercargill they are the same.

Promotion of Dunedin at all levels of DCC and Company activity. – a whole new area of opportunities to market Dunedin much more cost-effectively.

Further cost-savings for Councils https://www.taxpayers.org.nz/102_ways