Stadium appeal delay questioned

Although heaps of our money has already been spent, abandoning the Awatea Rugby Stadiun now will result in a huge saving over the next 50 years. Stopping it now will save Dunedin/Otago residents $15 million per year (approximately) in net operating losses (including depreciation). Over the 50 year expected lifespan, that is a saving of $750 million. All we get for that are two class B rugby games each year (everything else can be hosted elsewhere), and a bunch of power hungry Councillors with highly inflated egos.

I would have thought that as long as the appeal was notified within the allowable period, any other timing is irrelevant in law.
Similarly, the fact that the DCC decided to start the stadium before legal processes were concluded, should have no bearing on the legal facts of the case.
If the judges are giving these issues serious consideration, then it must be asked if they are judging on legal issues, or on practicalities.
And if it's the later, then the whole legal process and those involved in it become an irrelevant farce.

We shouldn't have to come to this - the council should have realised that this was a divisive issue (there were people marching in the streets for heaven's sake), published all the information and before signing anything held a referendum - I'd have been quite happy if that had happened and the citizens had voted for the stadium.
I think that we probably need a better way to get the council's attention in situations like this - being able to force a binding referendum, say from a petition by 15% of the population would be one way, or a perhaps a US-style recall vote (where a citizen petition triggers a vote on whether the council members should be kicked out and replaced by another election, or even the same election) - or both.
It's likely that just having these mechanisms in place would tend to make the council more responsive to their citizens - and once they'd been used once or twice we'd get a council that worked more in its citizens larger interest.
By the way I think it did just take about 2 weeks to get the appeal together, it was announced months ago not long after the original decision - after all it's just the same information that was presented in the original case being presented for review again - but the appeals court doesn't just have spare judges sitting there waiting for appeals to appear - one has to wait for them to schedule your case before you get a court date. The judge in the original case had the discrepancies in the council's case pointed out to him but claimed he didn't understand the provided spreadsheet - he rushed through a ruling because the city's brinkmanship had had them already sign the contract.

As a stadium supporter, I think this action is ill-conceived, and reading between the lines it is not going to succeed. However, this brings the issue to the forefront, should there not be another mechanism for residents to deal with issues rather than just taking legal action which costs everybody hundreds of thousands of dollars? Should there not be a central government body that can act as an arbitrator in cases like this, that can hand down rulings that councils must obey?
The cases it looks at would have to be of city-wide importance, as you would get people taking petty cases to the body every five minutes. There will be no winner out of this (except the lawyers). If the contract is cancelled the council, or should I say ratepayers, will be out millions of dollars. If council wins, STS, the ratepayers again, will be out hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees and costs awarded. No one will win here, and I still can't see the point of the action.
Construction has already begun, and STS has had years to get all of the legal challenges out of the way, but failed to do so. Why now, when there is millions at stake? And if there are so many people irate about the stadium, why is it left to Bev Butler to do all the work, take all of the criticism, and to scrounge enough money. Surely there would be enough professionals in Dunedin who would give their services for free? No one seems prepared to put money where their mouths are. If they were, would it would have taken 2 weeks to get an appeal together.

as I understand it STS's 2 week delay was because it had to raise the money to pay for the appeal before it could go forward - unlike the council it can't just throw our money willy-nilly at things. Remember the council actually signed the contract a week before the original court case had even completed - so it was just a done deal the day the judge ruled as it was 2 weeks later.