Raising debt

Do you get the feeling our city might have suddenly realised its in a bit of a financial hole?

Only a few days after the announcement parking wardens will be armed with cameras to bill more unsuspecting offenders of public safety, we now learn 4 experts from the USA are here to teach the council about alternative ways to raise more debt to fund development. Interestingly, the case study to examine this new form of debt raising will be the failed bid to develop Adelaide road.

You might recall the Adelaide road debacle?

Council began consulting in 2007 on developing Adelaide road, so it had already invested a considerable amount of time and public money, when it was subsequently told the bad news earlier this year. Apparently the council failed to appreciate from the start of the project that they could never slip the Adelaide Road project into the Basin Reserve redevelopment: “councilors were told … (in a document headed Appendix Z and buried at the bottom of a pile of reports) that the expected Transport Agency subsidy of $9 million would not be available because the changes would not significantly reduce travel times and the benefits would be worth less than the cost.” According to the article in scoop, the Adelaide Road project has been shelved for an alternative: Taranaki Street.

How much more debt is the council contemplating undertaking on our behalf? And where does it intend spending it? Hopefully it’s on infrastructure screaming out for attention (sewerage and water) and not on projects that other agencies can clearly see have no financial merit.

Where are our priorities?

Speaking of which, I also have to say that the public safety spin justifying the introduction of cameras in parking warden cars, does not sit very comfortably with me. Why wait for people to change their attitudes when they get around to opening their mail.

Why wait several weeks to get the message across?

Surely if public safety is the concern, it would be far better to have a few wardens in the at risk areas now, reminding people, that illegally stopping around schools  is a safety issue, and if they do it again they will be fined. This reinforces the issue immediately, and enforces public safety “now”, not weeks after they receive their mail. Clearly if the message has not sunk in, then by all means follow it up, with some financial incentives. But why go for the wallet first, if its a public safety issue? Lets try and help our residents out, rather than take their money.

In the meantime, lets hope the infringement notice at least explains that the reason they are being fined is due to a safety issue – and not just because they stopped illegally.

http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/2010/07/four-us-experts-to-advise-wellington-on-how-to-pay-for-new-city-developments, http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/2010/03/9m-disappears-so-adelaide-road-wont-become-a-grand-boulevard-after-all, http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/2010/07/council-to-spend-250000-photographing-illegally-parked-cars,