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Wednesday, January 31, 2024

David Farrar: No wonder WCC has no money for pipes


The Herald reports:

Wellington City Council has decided to replace its parking meter system at a cost it will not disclose, despite paying $1.5 million to install a new sensor network as recently as 2016.

The new pay-by-plate meters that went live this month are a paperless system that uses a vehicle licence plate number, rather than a numbered car park, to record parking time and payment.

The meters also offer the choice of English or te reo Māori instructions, which the council says supports its commitment to Pōneke becoming a bilingual city.

So they spent $1.5 million for a señor network they are getting rid of, and won't tell us how much they are spending on the new system.

And how much of the undisclosed cost is to make the meters bilingual, considering they tell us they do not have enough money to fix the pipes. What is more important to ratepayers – working water pipes, or bilingual parking meters?

David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders.

1 comment:

Tom Logan said...

Don't you worry about a few parking meters in Wellington David, you should see what we get up in Auckland.

Every second marine suburb has one or two sometimes three fibreglass whale tales about three metres high sticking out of the footpath near the beach . No one has any idea what they are about. A Local Board member told me they cost certainly more than $50,000 each, but that may not have included the cost of consulting local iwi".

And then we had $56 million spent planning a pedestrian harbour bridge which was cancelled within two months, $300 million plus spent planning the now deceased light rail, and who knows how much spent planning Labours $50 billion under harbour road and rail tunnel network which lasted about as long as the footbridge.

And the lefties say cutting 6.5 % from government expenditure will be catastrophic. If this govermnent manages it's finances properly 6.5 % will be achieved with ease

And I just don't know anybody in a government or council job that works as hard as the rest of us do whether we are self employed or employed in private industry. Worry about going broke , being laid off, having to work extra shifts or long overtime, or weekends . Just not on a government workers radar. Nor is their any responsibility in a government job for non-performance or total incompetance.

Anyway what more do you want David, you,ve got cycleways and the new car free downtown coming. You want tap water too?

Some people just don't know how lucky they are !