Capture: Two Tales of a City
1699 Responses
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Unfortunately the health of the local governing body is sadly in rapid decline.
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Lianne Dalziel is saying she doesn't want a one-horse race. I'd say Aaron B'Stard, oops, Gilmore, would be her dream opponent.
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Sacha, in reply to
but does an ass count?
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Gudrun Gisela, in reply to
I would think by the time elections come around there will be very few left who would want to race against Lianne Dalziel . Her popularity is increasing by the day as trouble in the CCC is not only brewing but fair boiling .
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Hebe, in reply to
I think it’s a great shame that there seems likely to be one strong candidate. In order to have any show of unifying the city and the council members and staff, the next mayor must have a strong mandate from the polls.
And if Lianne Dalziel has no credible challenger it will be difficult to achieve decent voter turnout, and therefore to get people voting for the much less sexy but fundamental positions like community board members, health board members, and councillors.
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Lilith __, in reply to
Oh I wouldn't worry about Cantabrians being motivated to vote. It's impossible not to have personal feelings about Council here, I think.
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Hebe, in reply to
It's hellishly difficult to get voters to turn out.
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Lilith __, in reply to
It’s hellishly difficult to get voters to turn out.
4 major disasters, grossly incompetent leadership, mass dissatisfaction and rage.
If people don't vote it won't be because of apathy.
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Hebe, in reply to
If people do not vote this time, it will be because they think voting will change nothing important to them.
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Two rumours about the Toilet Roll Cathedral are:
1st - It isn't built to code - This has been publically poo pooed.
2nd - It's rotting already. -
I do want Sam Johnson for Mayor & have asked him to run. Yeah he doesn't have the experience, but he doesn't have the baggage and having a nice guy uniting a council (with the various political minders) would be pretty good. He said no but that was before Bob dropped out.
The Mayor is a figure head in NZ with the same vote as any councillor. Sam would be my choice for Mayor.
Lianne lies and has already flashed her teeth in snarling at the current council. There was plenty of open ball to play but with a great display of her lack of skill she starts by trash talking. -
Stephen Judd, in reply to
Yeah he doesn’t have the experience,
…or the ability. He was the right person at the right moment, but just on his own account of things when I heard him speaking in public, he would never get a majority of councillors united behind him or be anything other than an inexhaustible source of wacky ideas. If you think he would be ok with minders, my question is, why not just elect the minders and avoid saddling them with the burden of managing a difficult puppet boy.
To be honest, the A team of the council deserve a savaging. Part of their job is to hold the council management to account and they have failed.
Apropos the cardboard cathedral , this is interesting reading.
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
If people do not vote this time, it will be because they think voting will change nothing important to them.
I'd have to agree that cynicism and disillusionment are much bigger factors than apathy. Society's downtrodden seem to have lost so much hope, that to them, voting won't make a difference. It's even worse in two-party dominant America, where presidential election turnouts have slumped to 50-60% levels. I suspect also that the downtrodden are more prone to transience, and hence a fiddlier job for the Electoral Commission.
Although there's the distinct possibility that Paula Bennett's latest welfare changes might become a tipping point. And also Gerry Brownlee's petrol tax proposal. In any case, Shearer (or whoever might replace him) and Norman need to get out the non-vote - it'll likely pay higher political dividends than chasing the vote of 'Waitakere Man', who will likely remain fickle no matter how hard the pandering.
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Lilith __, in reply to
Red – we’re talking about local-body elections in Chch. Post-disaster politics make for a unique situation here I think. Literally everybody in Chch is tangibly affected by our Council’s decisions.
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Hebe, in reply to
Please do not try to bend the Christchurch situation to any sort of ideological filter, whether left or right. It doesn’t work, and it shows a total lack of knowledge of what has gone on here that led to this, pre and post-quakes.
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Hebe, in reply to
the A team of the council deserve a savaging
Yup.
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Just thinking, in reply to
Hi Stephen, the minders are there by Central Govt decree & will continue for the foreseeable future. Christchurch has a history of nice guy/girl mayors and it would be good for that to start again.
Money & the Cathedral was a straw man argument. The money is insurance money set for rebuilding or restoring a cathedral in the square, not this Loo Roll of an iron and concrete A-frame structure with a cardboard cladding.
That people come to see it is no surprise. Responses to disaster are really important. Which is why these two buildings are so important and the response from the Bishop is so wrong.
Edit- Warren & Mahoney is just a Christchurch name brand & the key players are failing. Their last work at Uni building a student bar had the dance floor collapse at the first hip hop gig. This was a post quake build.
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I don't want a nice mayor, and I especially don't want one who's a figurehead for central government minders. Can't understand why you do, unless you've given up on local government entirely.
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Hebe,
I'd like a nice mayor who can also be a shit-kicker. A strategic mayor. Someone who connects with people rather than a camera. Someone who can run a business, and who understands the relationship between elected members and staff. Someone who listens. Someone who can plan. Someone people trust. Someone who has huge energy, huge networks and a personality that can carry people with them. And lots more.
So many qualities and so much time is needed for the job at this time in Christchurch that I think it needs two people to do it justice: co-mayors.
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http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/city-centre/8937775/Rain-leaves-cathedral-tubes-soggy
That this is Bans fault is unlikely in my opinion.
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
That this is Bans fault is unlikely in my opinion.
NZ seems to have made "build cheaply first & fix costly later" on something of an art form.
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Lilith __, in reply to
NZ seems to have made “build cheaply first & fix costly later” on something of an art form.
The cardboard tubes are non-structural. And a design issue, not a cost issue, in this case. Avant-garde design pushes boundaries, and sometimes they push back.
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
That this is Bans fault is unlikely in my opinion.
Shigeru Ban claims to do his own engineering assessments, so he's supposedly pretty hands-on. According to today's Press, The cardboard columns were cosmetic only, with the building load carried by timber beams inside the tubes. This has been public knowledge since February, though it hasn't stopped the project being hyped as the largest paper tube structure of Shigeru Ban’s career thus far.
While there's plenty of evidence for Ban's gift for self-publicity, his much-hyped "humanitarian" disaster relief projects pale under closer scrutiny. The cardboard cathedral went ahead with only a crude model, a few sketches, and a single computer generated long shot partly obscured by trees offered for public scrutiny. There wasn't even an attempt at a 3D walkthrough.
Ban needs Christchurch on his CV more than we - or the Anglicans - need him. The unfolding problems are due to a credulous Anglican hierarchy and NZ's dismal cultural cringe. When Ban spoke in Christchurch a while back someone casually mentioned that he'd also be designing a house for a senior member of the Anglican hierarchy. Let's hope it's made of something more substantial than his trademark tubes.
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
That this is Bans fault is unlikely in my opinion.
NZ seems to have made “build cheaply first & fix costly later” something of an art form.
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