Prudent management goes down the designer toilet

Our new council has approved spending $375,000 on a designer toilet.

Unbelievable!? Our council has failed its first test of prudent financial management in what was probably it’s easiest test of the year (and one that would have delivered a disproportionate amount of political capital) in approving $375k on a waterfront toilet. So much for being able to make the tough financial decisions.

Surprisingly Eagle, Best, and McKinnon voted against the Mayor Wade-Brown to spend $375k on a toilet. One would have thought all 3 would have stood with the Mayor? Either voting is orchestrated, or the Mayor is unable to rely on the support of the Deputy and her team (and especially some like councilor Best, who I thought were close allies)? What happened to the Mayors ability to build consensus (an election promise)? Its also really disappointing to see the 3 new councilors (Eagle, Lester and Marsh) fail to support prudent expenditure. This was their chance (especially Paul Eagle, a labour candidate who appeared to support the Mayor during elections), to show things had changed.

And yet only weeks earlier, our council were lamenting the limited options available to them to save money? According to McKinnon there were only three realistic options. It’s funny how councilors are quick to jump to “rate increases” and then cutting services. The third option, “raising debt”  is just a deference of these to another generation. Although this is probably the most politically acceptable option. But where is the option of doing things smarter (or not wasting so much of our money)? What happened to not spending money on extravagant proposals, like designer toilets? Surely prudent management would have thrown this proposal back for review and refinement, for a more cost effective option?

Fundamentally, the leaky homes deal should not have been approved by council. There were far better options that shared responsibility, reduced the cash flow impact and did not exclude those homeowners unable to raise finance for the other 50% (see one of my first posts on leaky homes).

http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=30509, http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=30423

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