What will you do for Rodney residents unhappy about their neglected roads?
I’m suspicious about road works. A lot of roads are badly repaired and then done again and again. Makes me wonder if it’s done on purpose so contractors stay employed. How can there be no warranty? Because of this, I think we are spending where and when we shouldn’t be.
The council needs to get back to core services and part of that is providing decent roads to the entire population – not just the well-connected central zones. We can do that by not spending on stupid things and putting the money where it should be put. Want to get me started on $500,000 for a stupid statue in Mt Eden? or $180k spent on consultants and contractors to put a mirror up on O’Connell St… wasted money going to the wrong places.
How will you make Auckland Transport and other Council Controlled Organisations accountable to the council?
The first part – get elected councillors onto the boards and, if possible, into positions where decisions must go through them.
Goff removing them from AT was a terrible move – and no doubt there was a behind closed doors reason for doing it. That’s bullshit.
Then I need to sit with the Council legal team to find out the exact rules and regulations of what can and can’t be done. Only then can we decide the exact plan of attack and ensure the councillors are behind the plan – which they should be because they are meant to represent the people and people want changes.
Will you reduce rates, leave them the same or increase them, and why?
JT and PG are all about how can we raise more money. I’m the opposite – I’m looking at it from the angle of let’s stop spending money.
If you treat the budget exactly as you would your own household budget, you don’t spend if you don’t have it. So, let’s stop the spending, get way more efficient, and then we don’t need to tax the people anymore.
Rates won’t go down, well they could be jeez that would take some doing. Ok, challenge accepted.
What will you do about the homeless sleeping on the streets?
It’s really a joint operation between Central and Local. But, I’ve been talking to a handful of different cabin suppliers about the options they can provide. Now I haven’t fully nutted it out yet, but I ‘m wondering if there is a way that a low-cost cabin style temporary accommodation village can be created to give the homeless somewhere to sleep, shower and be safe – until better options arise.
It needs input from the people that deal with the homeless day in day out though, as they know their ways, their reasons, their lifestyles. It’s wrong for me to come in and make plans for them without understanding them first.
What will you do about e-scooters on busy Auckland footpaths?
I see Lime has just announced a new scooter is coming. Bigger, with suspension. I’m ok with them to a point – I’ve had a go, but I showed common courtesy to the other footpath and cycleway users, but sadly there are plenty of arses out there that don’t. I like that they slowed them down to 15kph with geocaching – if it’s still an issue, drop the speed again and let’s see.
What are the three issues you would fix first if elected?
Big question as you want me to put at least 50 things into a top 3. Not easy to do – and not fair either!
I think the biggest issue for the city is traffic. It costs a business time, and time is money. So let’s get into the depths of AT and find out who is making the decisions that cause congestion, and find out how we stop it happening anymore. We all know it is done on purpose to force people out of private and into public transport. Ludo is a big part of that. I’ll be finding out the details of his employment contract. So AT is one – and it encompasses a vast array of problems. Motorway on-ramp lights, merge lanes in suburbs, judder bars. Lots.
AT is also the public transport. It’s no good. So we need to work harder on this. Trains to Huapai, & South, Penlink must begin now. Penlink NOW.
Number two is probably the spending, which is a massive massive task across the board. I want to know every external consultant, what they do, and how much they are paid. Department by department we will analyse the entire machine from wages to business expense cards. And every single person paid more than $100k will have their position fully scrutinised, and it had better be justified or I will find out how we can remove it.
The third, what a decision. I desperately want to stop the behind closed door deals. Anyone that says there are none is naive or lying. So that is definitely in the top 10, is it third over some others, difficult decision but I do want a genuine transparent council. Open books, open meetings, nothing to hide. It pisses me off that it happens as an outsider, so I’ll do everything I can to stop it from the inside.