Local government imploding post-disaster.
Two warnings - 1, this is loooooog. Like, really loooooog and 2, my 'n' key sticks and while I tried to catch them all I suspect I may have missed one or two of them.
The Christchurch City Council appears to be imploding in a spectacularly speedy fashion. This is, apparently, a thing that happens after disasters (imagine here that there's a link to the places I read that so as to make this look all properly thinky) as public opinion turns against those in charge. That is certainly the spin our mayor is trying to put on it -- you know 'look, people are stressed, they're taking it out on us, it happens' except ... um, no. Let's look back over the past few years and see what's been happening here.
I wasn't particularly aware of much in local politics until two things happened. Oh, I noticed people getting twitchy about a council bailout of a bankrupt developer (or something, not sure of the ins and outs but it ended up with the city owning a whole lot of failed developments) and the expensive purchase of the rights to the Ellerslie flower show. For those not from here, Ellerslie is in Auckland but in order to take over the running of the show we had to take on its name so we have the ridiculous circumstance where we have a flower show in Christchurch named after a place in Auckland for which privilege the ratepayers paid a ginormous sum. While I always thought this was ridiculous, these things didn't bother me much because, well, local politics. Yawn. What opened my eyes to it first was the stoush between the council, the university, the Arts Centre and the people of the city over whether or not it would be a good idea to put a music conservatorium on the Arts Centre grounds. Public opinion was that under no circumstances should the place be tampered with, the others all appeared to side with the university and liked the idea. After much wrangling and teeth gnashing on all sides it was stopped but not before a lot of bad blood had erupted between all interested parties. It was at this point that I first took notice of the way council ran -- and it wasn't pretty. Around the same time (can't recall if it was 2009 or 2010, but around then) several local mayors joined together to get our regional coucil, Environment Canterbury, dismissed and replaced with commissioners. This decision sent shockwaves through the city. Those councillors were democratically elected and by all accounts were doing the job the people voted them in to do - protect our water from overeager usage by big farming interests. But because they weren't consenting fast enough they were sacked and replaced. What's more we are not allowed to vote for that council again til 2013, with the possibility that that date could be pushed out further. This was despite the fact that there were other local body elections coming up at the end of 2010 which would have allowed plenty of time for people to stand and for any 'issues' to be resolved. People were outraged at the perceived loss of democracy.
Public opinion about the council was at an all time low. These four things appeared to show what has now come to be known as 'the Bob and Tony show' (after our mayor and council CEO) operating in secrecy, choosing what they wanted to get done and getting 'The A Team' on council to rubber stamp their ideas. It all culminated in an election which Bob was about to lose. He was polling at something like 25% while his main opponent polled at over 60% with 6 weeks to go. That was August 2010. Guess what happened to throw it all off kilter? Post-earthquake Bob's popularity skyrocketed. He was so calm, you see, and spoke so nicely and reassuringly and people either forgot they were annoyed with him and Tony Marryatt or they didn't care anymore and besides, the two of them promised to be more open, transparent and inclusive if Bob was re-elected and so he was voted in again. After the election he claimed it as a victory for his policies etc and instead of being more transparent and open the two of them seemed to dive into even more secrecy. The problems have got worse, the 'B team' has been more and more sidelined and trust between councillors is at an all time low. One of my local councillors, a long-serving, passionate and dedicated person (in fact the one I ran into in this post), resigned at least partially in protest at what she saw as the dysfunctionality of the council as it is. There have been veiled but obvious public messages to the coucillors who dissent via media articles that they need to stop being 'petty' and start toeing the party line, by which the public has assumed the mayor means that they need to stop representing their constituents and start doing what The Bob and Tony Show think is right for the city.
This is happening against a backdrop of some very tone-deaf comments and decisions from the two of them. The example which particularly sent the public into a rage was a decision to award the CEO, who is extremely unpopular and only just managed to hold onto his job when it was readvertised last year, a massive payrise (14% or $68,000-ish) backdated to prior to his new term as CEO. Since that is almost twice what many people in the city (especially the worst affected parts of the city) make people were appalled it had happened at a time when people were becoming very distressed financially from the quakes. He had done so poorly that he almost lost his job and yet he was given such a large rise. What's more he defended accepting it because he had worked so hard after the Feb quake. Now, I'm sure he did, but that was his job. Many people lost jobs, have had no payrises at all and worked at least as hard volunteering in the massive clean up task post-quake. What's more, he has been found to have lied when he said he didn't have a break for 9 weeks. Not a big deal, obviously; the guy was entitled to a break but lying about it in that situation was incredibly stupid and fuelled the fire even more. He has since said he'll stop taking the payrise, but won't pay back the part he's already been paid ... unless the council work together properly. ie, unless the B Team fall into line and stop making them all look bad with their annoying democratic processes.
So, the government is making noises about stepping in if the council doesn't sort itself out. They have been given six weeks to get thmselves into some sort of order. This has been used to political gain to try and silence protest, both public and within council. You know ... 'be careful what you wish for' 'there will be commissioners put in if we don't all agree' etc etc. It all seems intended to get rid of the issues, but it's not going away. I suspect Bob and Tony are a bit baffled by how to deal with it. They announced they will spend $80,000 on a communications review. Except ... they only told the council's commuications representative about it 20 minutes before it went public, once again doing exactly what people are annoyed about - making decisions by themselves behind closed doors ad keeping it even from members of the council who should be involved. The public are somewhat underwhelmed, with a lot of scorn being heaped on the review. Comments like 'I'll tell you what your problems are for free' have abounded on news sites reporting on it. There have been political cartoons in the Press. This post has all just scratched the surface of the council (this would be at least twice as long if I went into the various bickerings among the coucillors on the A and B teams), but it all came to a head today.
Today a significant number of people gathered outside council offices to protest what is going on and call for the government to dissolve the council and to hold new local elections. There are variations on estimates from 1,000 to 4,000 -- which in the middle of a working day when everyone there will have had to make an effort to get in since the council is in the city and most workers are now in the suburbs is pretty impressive. They touted the Share An Idea amount getting 10,000 people into the arena across 2 days as a success for engagement so I'd say a few thousand people on a workday would have to be considered pretty successful too. I fully support the idea behind the protest, but the government has another option which it is quite likely to use - appoint commissioners. Yes, just like they did with ECan. Why do I think they'll use that one? Because they have already appointed an 'observer' to oversee the council and help them sort out their issues. It's only a small step from that to a commissioner or commissioners. The very large worry with that is that we already have ECan out of our hands, the council can already be over-ridden by CERA, and if the council itself is replaced then there would, literally, be no-one left in the city representing the voices of the people who live here. This is a very dangerous situation and we need to be careful, but of all the options possible new elections would be the best. The council as it is is totally dysfunctional with none of them trusting any others of them and the mayor and CEO in particular having lost the respect and backing of the community. They have very little chance of turning around and salvaging public opinion and so it would be better to have a clean slate. That clean slate should be new elections and what's more they should be soon so that the curret by-election we're having in my ward can be folded into the main election. This doesn't get rid of the CEO and the problems associated with him (his is an appointed not elected roll), but it should at least put some brakes on him as his buddy is out of the picture.
Whew! That was long as a way to talk about today's protest, but I think I needed to see it all laid out. People have said they think it's just reaction to EQC and other frustrations around the quakes, but it's not. This is a problem which has been brewing for several years (and written nicely about in this post, even if this person has a political agenda) and it needs to be sorted out for the city to be able to deal effectively with the very large issues facing us now and into the future. The thing is Bob Parker has two very good qualities in my opinion. He obviously loves the city and wants what he thinks is best for it and he is very soothing as a figurehead in a crisis. Unfortunately, I don't think he has team leadership skills. That was annoying pre-quakes, but post-quakes it is becoming really problematic as he tries to do as much as he can in secret and with a minimal group to push an agenda. My hope from this and future protests is that we get clear, consistent, inclusive government during this time. If it makes Bob start to be more open and inclusive and respectful of differing opinions then great, fine, keep the council as is. But, as is becoming increasingly clear, this does't seem likely and that means it's time for a change.
The Christchurch City Council appears to be imploding in a spectacularly speedy fashion. This is, apparently, a thing that happens after disasters (imagine here that there's a link to the places I read that so as to make this look all properly thinky) as public opinion turns against those in charge. That is certainly the spin our mayor is trying to put on it -- you know 'look, people are stressed, they're taking it out on us, it happens' except ... um, no. Let's look back over the past few years and see what's been happening here.
I wasn't particularly aware of much in local politics until two things happened. Oh, I noticed people getting twitchy about a council bailout of a bankrupt developer (or something, not sure of the ins and outs but it ended up with the city owning a whole lot of failed developments) and the expensive purchase of the rights to the Ellerslie flower show. For those not from here, Ellerslie is in Auckland but in order to take over the running of the show we had to take on its name so we have the ridiculous circumstance where we have a flower show in Christchurch named after a place in Auckland for which privilege the ratepayers paid a ginormous sum. While I always thought this was ridiculous, these things didn't bother me much because, well, local politics. Yawn. What opened my eyes to it first was the stoush between the council, the university, the Arts Centre and the people of the city over whether or not it would be a good idea to put a music conservatorium on the Arts Centre grounds. Public opinion was that under no circumstances should the place be tampered with, the others all appeared to side with the university and liked the idea. After much wrangling and teeth gnashing on all sides it was stopped but not before a lot of bad blood had erupted between all interested parties. It was at this point that I first took notice of the way council ran -- and it wasn't pretty. Around the same time (can't recall if it was 2009 or 2010, but around then) several local mayors joined together to get our regional coucil, Environment Canterbury, dismissed and replaced with commissioners. This decision sent shockwaves through the city. Those councillors were democratically elected and by all accounts were doing the job the people voted them in to do - protect our water from overeager usage by big farming interests. But because they weren't consenting fast enough they were sacked and replaced. What's more we are not allowed to vote for that council again til 2013, with the possibility that that date could be pushed out further. This was despite the fact that there were other local body elections coming up at the end of 2010 which would have allowed plenty of time for people to stand and for any 'issues' to be resolved. People were outraged at the perceived loss of democracy.
Public opinion about the council was at an all time low. These four things appeared to show what has now come to be known as 'the Bob and Tony show' (after our mayor and council CEO) operating in secrecy, choosing what they wanted to get done and getting 'The A Team' on council to rubber stamp their ideas. It all culminated in an election which Bob was about to lose. He was polling at something like 25% while his main opponent polled at over 60% with 6 weeks to go. That was August 2010. Guess what happened to throw it all off kilter? Post-earthquake Bob's popularity skyrocketed. He was so calm, you see, and spoke so nicely and reassuringly and people either forgot they were annoyed with him and Tony Marryatt or they didn't care anymore and besides, the two of them promised to be more open, transparent and inclusive if Bob was re-elected and so he was voted in again. After the election he claimed it as a victory for his policies etc and instead of being more transparent and open the two of them seemed to dive into even more secrecy. The problems have got worse, the 'B team' has been more and more sidelined and trust between councillors is at an all time low. One of my local councillors, a long-serving, passionate and dedicated person (in fact the one I ran into in this post), resigned at least partially in protest at what she saw as the dysfunctionality of the council as it is. There have been veiled but obvious public messages to the coucillors who dissent via media articles that they need to stop being 'petty' and start toeing the party line, by which the public has assumed the mayor means that they need to stop representing their constituents and start doing what The Bob and Tony Show think is right for the city.
This is happening against a backdrop of some very tone-deaf comments and decisions from the two of them. The example which particularly sent the public into a rage was a decision to award the CEO, who is extremely unpopular and only just managed to hold onto his job when it was readvertised last year, a massive payrise (14% or $68,000-ish) backdated to prior to his new term as CEO. Since that is almost twice what many people in the city (especially the worst affected parts of the city) make people were appalled it had happened at a time when people were becoming very distressed financially from the quakes. He had done so poorly that he almost lost his job and yet he was given such a large rise. What's more he defended accepting it because he had worked so hard after the Feb quake. Now, I'm sure he did, but that was his job. Many people lost jobs, have had no payrises at all and worked at least as hard volunteering in the massive clean up task post-quake. What's more, he has been found to have lied when he said he didn't have a break for 9 weeks. Not a big deal, obviously; the guy was entitled to a break but lying about it in that situation was incredibly stupid and fuelled the fire even more. He has since said he'll stop taking the payrise, but won't pay back the part he's already been paid ... unless the council work together properly. ie, unless the B Team fall into line and stop making them all look bad with their annoying democratic processes.
So, the government is making noises about stepping in if the council doesn't sort itself out. They have been given six weeks to get thmselves into some sort of order. This has been used to political gain to try and silence protest, both public and within council. You know ... 'be careful what you wish for' 'there will be commissioners put in if we don't all agree' etc etc. It all seems intended to get rid of the issues, but it's not going away. I suspect Bob and Tony are a bit baffled by how to deal with it. They announced they will spend $80,000 on a communications review. Except ... they only told the council's commuications representative about it 20 minutes before it went public, once again doing exactly what people are annoyed about - making decisions by themselves behind closed doors ad keeping it even from members of the council who should be involved. The public are somewhat underwhelmed, with a lot of scorn being heaped on the review. Comments like 'I'll tell you what your problems are for free' have abounded on news sites reporting on it. There have been political cartoons in the Press. This post has all just scratched the surface of the council (this would be at least twice as long if I went into the various bickerings among the coucillors on the A and B teams), but it all came to a head today.
Today a significant number of people gathered outside council offices to protest what is going on and call for the government to dissolve the council and to hold new local elections. There are variations on estimates from 1,000 to 4,000 -- which in the middle of a working day when everyone there will have had to make an effort to get in since the council is in the city and most workers are now in the suburbs is pretty impressive. They touted the Share An Idea amount getting 10,000 people into the arena across 2 days as a success for engagement so I'd say a few thousand people on a workday would have to be considered pretty successful too. I fully support the idea behind the protest, but the government has another option which it is quite likely to use - appoint commissioners. Yes, just like they did with ECan. Why do I think they'll use that one? Because they have already appointed an 'observer' to oversee the council and help them sort out their issues. It's only a small step from that to a commissioner or commissioners. The very large worry with that is that we already have ECan out of our hands, the council can already be over-ridden by CERA, and if the council itself is replaced then there would, literally, be no-one left in the city representing the voices of the people who live here. This is a very dangerous situation and we need to be careful, but of all the options possible new elections would be the best. The council as it is is totally dysfunctional with none of them trusting any others of them and the mayor and CEO in particular having lost the respect and backing of the community. They have very little chance of turning around and salvaging public opinion and so it would be better to have a clean slate. That clean slate should be new elections and what's more they should be soon so that the curret by-election we're having in my ward can be folded into the main election. This doesn't get rid of the CEO and the problems associated with him (his is an appointed not elected roll), but it should at least put some brakes on him as his buddy is out of the picture.
Whew! That was long as a way to talk about today's protest, but I think I needed to see it all laid out. People have said they think it's just reaction to EQC and other frustrations around the quakes, but it's not. This is a problem which has been brewing for several years (and written nicely about in this post, even if this person has a political agenda) and it needs to be sorted out for the city to be able to deal effectively with the very large issues facing us now and into the future. The thing is Bob Parker has two very good qualities in my opinion. He obviously loves the city and wants what he thinks is best for it and he is very soothing as a figurehead in a crisis. Unfortunately, I don't think he has team leadership skills. That was annoying pre-quakes, but post-quakes it is becoming really problematic as he tries to do as much as he can in secret and with a minimal group to push an agenda. My hope from this and future protests is that we get clear, consistent, inclusive government during this time. If it makes Bob start to be more open and inclusive and respectful of differing opinions then great, fine, keep the council as is. But, as is becoming increasingly clear, this does't seem likely and that means it's time for a change.