Incisive leadership

The sight of Dunedin city councillors wallowing in crocodile tears on Tuesday as they completed what is likely to be their last debate on the rates rise for the coming financial year was disappointing and disturbing.

Ratepayers now face a 7% increase with prospects for even higher rises in the following two years, yet the council seems unable to do anything but go around in circles.

For years, the council has lacked decisiveness, and the councillors at the annual plan meeting did a good job in illustrating this weakness.

Cr Dave Cull summed it up when he said: "I'm disappointed in us that we could not show more discipline and pull this back from 7%."

Councillors plaintively came up with efforts to cut spending at the last minute, and each time failed to win support from colleagues.

As suggestions mounted, an increasingly frustrated Mayor Peter Chin said it was too late to return to detailed questioning of council staff over cost savings, while Cr John Bezett said he was "particularly concerned" about what was happening because none of the suggestions was backed by staff reports detailing the implications.

It is already June and the draft 7% rise is due to be confirmed when the council meets in just over two weeks.

Councillors and the council have battled with annual plan information since before Christmas and long before now should have made hard decisions on what to cut.

While the big burdens like sewerage and water supply provision are unavoidable, councillors have to be prepared to make many smaller savings in the knowledge that comparatively little amounts do add up.

Also unedifying was the saga of the long-planned rebuilding of the Portobello jetty.

The worthy plan - so many projects are worthy - received council support in 2007 but a series of problems have recently been identified, which mean the project has to be sent back to staff to be reassessed before going to the community board and council committees for further discussion.

Back and forth goes another scheme, with costs mounting all the time.

Likewise, the issue of upgrades to Dunedin's Regent Theatre will be the subject of expensive reports and studies.

A further $4.4 million in the 2010-11 financial year for construction work will have to wait until after consultation for next year's annual plan, when a report on Dunedin's theatres should be completed.

At one stage on Tuesday night, Cr Richard Walls suggested an amendment that included the $350,000 being given to the Regent Theatre to design work for an upgrade in the next financial year being used to explore how the Regent could have an 800-seat theatre option.

The mayor, although often not the most decisive, in this case had the sense to recognise the option would result in a public reaction that would make issues like the town hall atrium "seem like kindy".

At some point, councillors have to eliminate options as unrealistic and get on with what can be achieved rather than leave all sorts of possibilities lying around.

They have to be prepared to say no.

Otherwise, they raise expectations and suck up research, report and consultation costs.

The rates rise for the coming year now looks set at 7%, a figure that should have been trimmed months ago by councillors determined not to fritter away the public's money.

It is just too easy for councillors to avoid hard decisions and then, as they did on Tuesday night, throw their hands up in horror at the inevitable results.

Of course, they will frustrate - and even anger - various interests when they make tough decisions to spend on key projects and to trim, cut or eliminate spending in others.

But that is the central part of their job as elected councillors.

Particularly in these difficult times, we expect them to make tough calls for the next financial year from early in the next annual plan process.

They will take criticism when they do so, much of it directed through reports in this newspaper because it provides an essential forum for community views and debate.

But councillors are the city's leaders - and they must show firm, incisive leadership.