puff: puff 318 Wheeler's Corner

Wheeler’s CornerÓ

Connecting Citizens Who Care

08 1st March 2007

This Week: 1. Wellington Social housing… 2. Pay back? 3. Toll Holdings say thanks… 4. Café News… 5. Letter to Editor… 7. My God

Editorial

Ever heard of Bell, McCaw, Bampfylde, no? Well they are a high flying Headhunting Company based in Wellington. It would seem that our council has money to burn and they are searching for a new CEO for the PNCC. Their website [www.bmb.co.nz] states ‘We deliver the right person for the job’. I can only hope they weren’t the same mob who delivered the last CEO. Has anyone sighted an ad for the position in our papers? The Tasman District Council has welcomed our out going CEO by a small introduction in its online newsletter. Which can be viewed at: [http://tdc.govt.nz/pdfs/Newsline%20dec%2014.pdf] where it said: ‘Mr. Wylie was presently CEO of the PNCC and that he had held senior management positions in the health sector such as, Mental Health Services, Health Link South, and Midcentral District Health Board. He was making the move for life style choice’. No doubt all the experience learned in the Health Sector and his [?] community experience here in Palmerston North in organising the City Heart project will stand him in good stead in a district council which is about half the population of Palmerston North. Tasman District Council has thirteen councillors with half the population as we do here. It is ironic don’t you think. If anyone would like to express an opinion on their working relationship with the TDC new CEO you might like to get in touch with them at: tdc@govt.nz [It is thought that organisations like the above charge up to twenty-five percent of the first year’s salary. Therefore this cost may be as high as sixty thousand dollars.]

1. Wellington shows the way, by getting off their backsides the Wellington City Council has secured a deal to update and build low income housing in the city. You may have noticed that they call there housing scheme, ‘low income’ and not pensioner or elderly, and they include special needs in that heading. They are planning a thirty-year plus commitment to the programme.

2. It would appear that the outgoing PNCC CE Officer Mr. Paul Wylie could be getting his own back on the Editor of the Manawatu Standard for his powerful editorial on the Square/City Heart project. Council appears to have cancelled its public notice of coming events in Saturdays Manawatu Standard… And his rejection of a response to a request from the Tribune [a Manawatu Standard sister publication] asking for information as to why no funding was available to "Urban Care" to carry out its’ now highly valued ‘Junk of Joy’ exercise was rejected. Was this because the MS published a letter on this very issue? It certainly is possible and follows the past behaviour patterns of the gentleman concerned.

3. It was good to see ‘Toll Holdings’ the actual owners of the Palmerston North Railway Station say thank you after heaps of Scouts had a break from tying knots and assisted in doing the daily maintenance that ‘Toll Holdings’ ignores. According to their spokesperson they have better things to spend their money on. In some respects this is true for when the railway system was sold the then buyers on sold it and took their millions of dollars off shore and haven’t been seen since. In true Roger Douglas style the service was then completely run down. Toll Holdings brought it for a song and now it takes Scouts to make it presentable. ‘Toll Holdings’ should make a sizable donation to PN Scouts and at least hire a couple of staff to keep the place neat and tidy. The cost involved would not be noticed from the profit that heads across the Tasman.

4. Over heard at McDonalds Café:

‘Are you applying for the top job?

‘You must be joking’

‘I am not, I think you’d make a neat boss, you are kind, considerate, good at your job, you listen great and you’ve lived here for over twenty-five years’

‘Are you wanting me to pay for the coffee?

‘If you were the boss, you could afford it, the job pays around two hundred and ninety-five thousand dollars a year’.

‘Stop taking the Mickey’

‘I’m not, I know you’ve got a good dark suit, you have gray hair and you could wear your Massey Rugby Club tie, yeah you’d make a meal of the interview and I could act as your agent’

‘You really believe that I should apply what if I actually got the job?

‘No problems, you’ll have dozens of underlings and managers they do the real work and if something goes wrong just blame them, or the councillors’.

‘Right I’ll give it a go…what was the name of that head hunting company again?

‘Bell, McCaw, Bampfylde’…

5. Dear Sir I was interested to read that the City Council's CEO was / is unable to supply your Editor with accurate figures for the cost of the Square and related makeover. And that it would take a lot / too much staff time to extract them, despite the fact that Council statements regularly gave "gross" figures.

That situation reminds me of an earlier occasion when the previous incumbent [at that time called 'city manager'] in response to a query from me about a set of figures quoted in a letter from the City Manager to the Standard. Which supposedly demonstrated that the Council's commitment to 'community' had steadily increased eventually gave the same reply.

When I asked for how the three figures were made up and after waiting several months I got a reply saying they did not know how the figures were derived as they could not get them to add up to those officially released. The information I did receive showed massive inconsistencies in what was included or left out from year to year. I was also told that to do the job properly would cost a lot of staff time and I would have to pay.

I am impressed that after so many years the Council's accounting system is still designed for obfuscation and is still incapable of any project-centred analysis. No lesser organisation, including community groups which the Council niggardly supports, would ever be allowed to get away with such inadequate systems. Yours in sympathy Ian Ritchie

6. Council and the Media: Most community groups value media coverage of a positive nature. It helps get their message out and can and does assist with recruitment especially of voluntary workers. So local newspaper editors can play an important part in this key activity. Now council is not a community group and it spends hundreds of thousands on advertising. It also employs staff to push its public relations activities. Some local media no doubt enjoy the income coming in from this source. The local media uses even the good news pumped out daily by council via press releases. The clash takes place when the local newspaper undertakes to investigate real matters of interest to the citizens. The council can and does react in a negative manner to this investigative behaviour. It can react in various ways such as removing advertising, demanding that the ‘Freedom of Information’ processes are used, charging for information or simply by ignoring requests for comments. No doubt our council uses all, or most of these methods to gain some control over what the public reads or hears. The two free papers, the Tribune and the Guardian appear to rely on council handouts for council news. Of late the Tribune has lifted its letters to the editor section while the Guardian appears to have gone backwards regarding letters to the editor and filled the space with council PR material. Since the arrival of the new editor of the Manawatu Standard and the encouragement of the letters to the editor process and its open editorial writing, a new and welcomed transparency has developed between it and the citizens. Perhaps things might change now that positions at the top are changing and we may get someone who doesn’t hide behind staff or is so insecure in the position. It is also good to see individuals and groups are taking advantage of Access Radio and the letters to the editor in two of the three local papers.

7. My God welcomes all the new and returning students to the city and hopes that you all will make use of the free bus service.

Peter J Wheeler

Wheeler@inspire.net.nz