Stadium debt shackles tighten on ratepayers

I see the get over it brigade are still spouting the trash we have been fed over the past few years. I have no idea what my stadium 'contribution' to the DCC is, but I do know I have to pay another $25 to the ORC. So much for Malcolm Farry's $66 not a penny more. This situation was predicted and suitably ignored by the mindless sycophants on council...the same group now doing the hand wringing.

If this monolith was a financial goldmine why isn't a priate group or company not offering to buy it? Perhaps Malcolm should be asked to call around his mates and see if they are interested? Dunedin is in trouble, I would suggest some alternative uses for the plastic box be  investigated. Tomatoes have been unbelievably expensive this year...try growing them in there!

Farry's original brief was to look at replacing or fixing Carrisbrook without any ratepayer contribution. Big failure there.

The promised average annual ratepayer contribution of $66 was only the DCC part; this does not include the ORC rates. I pay about $30 per year for the stadium to thr ORC.

Convenient that my DCC rates bill does not specifically state how much I'm paying for the stadium, but in the last 18 months my DCC rates has increased by $216 per year. I wonder how much of this is stadium.

Democratically and financially, the stadium is just wrong.

The $66, as some of us have said until we are blue in the face, only covers $5 million of the stadium cost. This figure is repeated again and again by the Council, the ODT and Farry and his cohorts but the true figure payable by ratepayers is more like $400 every year.

It is not hard to calculate - try multiplying 51,000 ratepayers by $66 and see if you can get a figure approximating the $200million required by ratepayers.

One day we'll get some proper reporting and analysis on this and then the rest of the  country will definitely be laughing at how we were all taken in. (We won't be laughing - we'll be bankrupt.)

Telling people to get over it, it's only $60 a year shows how many people fail to question the rubbish we have been fed about the stadium's predicted costings. $66 per ratepayer X 46,000 ratepayers = about $3m per year.  These figures never stood up to serious scrutiny, but the powers that be were determined that Dunedin build a second stadium in time for the RWC.  We are looking at at least $120m capital cost to ratepayers and  we don't yet know the operating losses which we will have to bear. The maintenance fund is going to be deferred also.  So $3m a year ratepayer funding is a drop in the bucket of required funding.  So I can't "get over it" as the numbers are just too scary, and no amount of "kicking the can down the road" will hide it. 

I suspect more people will be laughing at Otago for the sake being in fiscal difficulty rather than having a stadium, though that project has played a big part in the debt situation. It is not so much that there are "naysayers" to the stadium rather the funding of it and the very confident projections it would be a financial windfall for the city.

If only it was just $66 on the average rates bill that we had to worry about but there is regional rates on top of that and that council is struggling to fund flood mitigation costs now.

We people in Otago will also have fun laughing at other regions for example Waikato who are hell bent of going down a cycling centre in similar style to that of the stadium here.

I do have a solution to the funding: every ticket, beverage, scrap of food, any parking around that venue must go up by 50% across the board.  The people that wanted this venue now have it so should start paying more for it.

All I want to know RussandBev is the total cost of the stadium project to date, the projected final cost including land cost, highway mods, and "extras", and a comparison with the budget. This should not be difficult. The CST spend the money, DCC pay the bills, and keep a cumulative total. What is so hard about stating these numbers on this forum? Regarding accountability for the Stadium mess, there won't be any! Accountability could only come via the Mayor and Council and since so many of the current Council approved the original project, they would stonewall any audit as long as they are in office. Can the new CEO display willingness to listen to the public outcry ? Wait and see.

All the naysayers need to get over themselves - without something like this stadium Dunedin was a dead duck. At least you are now capable of hosting large scale events - even in the height of a bleak Dunedin winter. Sixty bucks a year - if ratepayers are willing to revolt over that it is no wonder the rest of the country is laughing at you. Ridiculous. 

Hello Dave,
Well, you do have an interesting life. The F&S meeting on Monday will be another nail in the coffin of the city's financial body. I read with interest the latest manipulations proposed by the 'Gurus' of the money tree in the suggestions to increase the authorised capital structures of both DVL and DVML. DVL is to be set at $160million $1 shares and DVML at $10million shares. In both instances these increases will be uncalled. This, however, places a legal obligation for the shareholder/s to come forward with the cash should circumstances arise requiring it. It does however, provide collateral security against which monies can be borrowed up to the amount of the authorised capital should it be required.

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Mr Stephens' "Love to do (but not essential)" list should include  1. Town Hall extensions 2. continuing to support the stadium, mothballing it is an real option. 

The " Need to do" list includes 1. resiting vital infrastruture in South Dunedin (Tahuna treatment) and elsewhere, prior to the effects of sea level rise being felt. 2. In light of Peak Oil being in 2006, develop a comprehensive public transport system which will include cycleways, electric buses/trams/light rail.

Personally, I have no problem in seeing Stadium debt repayment extended to 40 years, but no delay in growing a maintenance fund. I do not want to see any increase in my current rates bill attributable to Stadium debt. As a superannuitant I cannot afford any increase so let future generations post 20 years from now work it out for themselves. Regarding maintenance deferment due to lack of a maintenance fund, check out Invercargill's looming roading problem, or Waitomo who deferred maintenance. Accountants love to tout deferring maintenance as a panacea as if doing nothing will stop rust! But they do not understand the physical repercussions of deferrment. They have no training in asset maintenance and do not understand that delaying maintenance due to lack of funding will increase the eventual maintenance cost many times. I also suggest that all DCC Councillors read, "Intergenerational equity: Treatment of infrastructure in local government financial planning" with particular reference to the conclusions.

For the sake of Christchurch residents and their well-being of their pocketbook, I do sincerely hope that they do not replicate our fiscal mess. After all, I am sure every one of them can find better things to do with their money than build a stadium. I wonder whether they will be sold a $188-million-and-not-a-penny-more fairy tale too. While I am curious, I would be sad to see the story unfold.

Oh, and by the way, if they get a covered venue in Chch, we can kiss a lot of potential events at our white elephant goodbye, can't we?  What with two white elephants competing for meagre pickings and Chch being the bigger city.... What does that do for the ratepayer contribution of feeding our white elephant? Like there is any other answer! Oh dear!

I for one believes he owes Dunedin ratepayers an answer. I would love to hear what he has to say about this.

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This oft quoted $66 per annum per household conveniently ignores the $20 approx per annum added to the Regional Council Rates. The chickens are gently arriving to roost for this unwanted stadium, so far that is. Get ready for the rush.

Private funding is non-existent.  It is pretty plain.  Malcolm Farry and his mates promised to deliver about $45 million of private funding and it was included in one of his press releases that this would be part of the funds required to build the new rugby stadium.  What happened was that he presold seats and other "product" and then this had to become part of the operating revenue of the stadium.  The private funding for construction simply didn't happen and it won't happen as it relies on a genuine operating profit. 

All you really need to understand The Watcher, is that all of the costs, all of the operating deficits and all of the debt will be met by the ratepayers.  It has now clearly been shown that the $66 figure quoted by all the previous Council's proponents, many of whom are still sitting round the Council table, was absolutely BS and was demonstrably so from the beginning.  What people should now be thinking about is how those Councillors who, through a mix of incompetence or worse, can be held accountable for stuffing our City.

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From the start, the insane aspect of this thing was that it had the capacity for a future domino-effect. Those who were hell-bent on inflicting this on the city for their own ends, and let's not kid ourselves that pecuniary gain had no part in it, 'went-for-the jugular', throwing all caution to the winds. The web of obfuscation was set up to disguise the fact that any one element, in an unstable financial edifice, would be capable of dragging down the whole city with it, and with each passing day, that situation comes closer to realisation, despite assurances from 'experts'.

At the very least, each element in this disastrous chain of potential events, should have been firewalled-off from every other one, in the same way that a ship may be kept afloat if sufficient of its water-tight bulkheads are activated to isolate the damage to any one area of the hull early-enough. Of course, the water is pouring into our little scheme unchecked and the water-tight doors are non-existent.

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If you didn't cry you would have to laugh.

"A report on the issue from Ms Howard said it had been assumed public sector debt would be paid back over 20 years.

"This is no longer possible."

Back-of-the-envelope calculations done independently by several people indicated ths was not possible - from the outset.  Some were just waiting to see if the DCC financial planners were that much smarter or had access to more information than the rest of us, but this proved not to be the case.

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There was an enormous amount of information available about stadia world-wide, about attendance at rugby games and its popularity trends since other types of entertainment became readily available, about everything pertaining to deciding that Dunedin's Fubar Stadium must go ahead come hell or high water. - Yet the Great Worthy Somebodies of our society, elected or appointed into power and their steakholder mates behind the scenes, were wilfully blind to all the reasons.  One can only speculate on their motivations.   Now the ignored, ridiculed, "nay-saying anti-progress" nobodies have been proved correct.  As a nobody I'd rather be wrong than in the position I'm in now - paying for the rest of my life for the Somebodies' folly.

Oh how the ideologically rich and 'old boys' network here in Dunedin are now really trying to justify their narcissistic flawed 'visions' by making the rest of us who simply cannot afford it, pay for the 'privilege' of their vanity, greed, and lust. 

There is a television programme on Prime on Thurday's called "Dirty Filthy Cities" and looking at what has been allowed to emerge/happen here, we could now add Dunedin to those profiled.

Simply put, there's a massive 'stench' here in Dunedin, and it isn't the rubbish and sewerage being left on the streets and foreshore of Dunedin.

and pay and pay and pay.

This debt is intolerable and the people responisble should be held to account.  I think it is time for an audit of the whole affair.

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Can anybody, anywhere please explain in plain English a definition of firstly "public sector debt" and "private sector debt" and how much will be paid in each case compared with how much was budgeted? Also, exactly what is planned to be purchased as capital expenditure for maintenance for $6.3 million, and when? I can only think of a roof replacement and we were told this would last at least 20 years.The steelwork painting should last at least 15 years under warranty.

One of the justifications for getting this staduim built was that Carisbrook was broken due to a lack of capital maintenance.  The owners of that ground could not afford its upkeep.

The same issue is now upon the new stadium.  Just why anyone thought this would be a different situation is rather odd.

Despite all the promises of it paying for itself and finances being under control the city now finds itself in a hole of quite large proportions.

None of this should be a surprise to anyone that simply searched the internet for articles on stadium economics before the decision to build this one was made.

There is one opportunity to raise income and that is to charge the NZRFU a lot more money to play there.  There isn't a venue of this size in the South Island at the moment (though Christchurch will build a copy of the Dunedin one within 10 years, meaning an end to the roof being a point of difference) afterall that particular organisation has been "liking what you are doing there".

I'm pretty sure our future generations will ask us "why didn't you stop this thing being built?"  Could a supporter look them in the eye and honestly say they'd done their homework or will they just blame this mess on the politicians of the day?

The next few years of soaring energy costs and constraints to oil supply will give us all the benefit of hindsight in judging what are 'love to do' projects, and I am sure it won't turn out to be cycleways!