DCC

The people had a small victory yesterday after Dunedin city council staff first rejected a proposal to stop accepting individual rubbish bag charges at city landfills, and then backed down on a subsequent proposal to reinstate single bag fees, but at an increased cost.

Dunedin city councillors will today have to decide how best to use nearly $1 million ''windfall'' in savings that could trim the coming year's rates increase to 3.2%.

Dunedin City Council funding for the Dunedin Gasworks Museum is ''chewing gum to stick the thing together'', and more than $2.5 million could be needed to save the buildings, the council's city property manager says.

Plans for a South Dunedin library may be accelerated after city councillors pushed for faster progress yesterday.

Sycamore trees are in the crosshairs of Dunedin city councillors, who have asked council staff to identify the implications of registering them as a noxious plant.

It seems the residents of Gladstone Rd South will have to put up with a dusty, unsealed road for some years yet.

Dunedin City Council staff are confident service levels will not suffer, despite trimming more than half a million dollars a year from the transportation operations budget.

Building a rock breakwater at Te Rauone Beach would not completely protect the area from erosion and would ''not be the best value'', Dunedin city councillors have been warned.

More than $1 million is being spent to alleviate sewerage and flooding problems in Mosgiel.

Dunedin City Council staff facing job transfers under a waste and water services proposal have been ''fobbed off'', the Amalgamated Workers Union New Zealand says.