After two years and the spending of $45 million of ratepayers' money, the Otago Stadium issue is still not finally resolved. Dunedin City Council reporter David Loughrey looks back on a year of prolonged and bitter public debate on an issue that will not go away.
The date has yet to be decided, but in early February both the Dunedin city and Otago regional councils will sit - again - to decide whether what is now called the Otago Stadium should either go ahead, or be stopped in its tracks.
Dunedin City Council chief executive Jim Harland says the meeting dates will have to fit in with the councils' annual plan timetables and, for the city council, its plan has to go to Audit New Zealand by February 11.
The stadium has been through any number of big decisions, lines in the sand and exit points, and - seemingly unstoppable - has always managed to come out the other side.
It now faces its biggest test, with the world financial crisis giving decision-makers some serious jitters.
Privately, some councillors who have so far supported the project are rethinking that position, while opponents have stuck with their opposition.
Others also say they will stick with the project.
The general consensus is that will be a tighter vote than the 10-4 split when the project was given approval in March, but the result is anyone's guess.
Issues at the heart of the debate include whether the city can afford to build and then operate such a massive project, what role local authorities have outside providing core services, and whether they should be funding a stadium.
But those issues have sometimes been lost sight of as the project is fought on every front.
In fact, tracking down any sort of "truth" is a hazardous occupation, and speaking out can lead to attacks.
What has been a long two years of debate has left nobody involved immune from criticism, be it councillors, council staff, trust members and employees, opponents, and, of course, the media, as facts and figures are fired from both sides.
The cost, for instance, is $188 million, according to the Carisbrook Stadium Trust, $214 million, according to former Dunedin City Council auditor Nicola Holman, who teaches public sector accounting at the University of Otago, or more than $400 million, according to Dr Robert Hamlin, of the University of Otago's School of Business.
The stadium is multipurpose, proponents say, or for rugby only, opponents respond.
The land on which it is to be built is either safe and secure, or about to be washed away in the next storm, riddled with pollutants and even prone to terrorist attacks, depending on your viewpoint.
The financial health of city residents has been hotly debated, with stadium opponents seeing red when the Otago Daily Times published census data showing the number of Dunedin households earning more than $100,000 a year had risen rapidly, and the number of households earning less than $20,000 had dropped from 25% in 2001 to 17.2% in 2006.
Those figures did not reflect reality, they said, when other figures showed 51.2% of people aged 15 years and over in Dunedin had an annual income of $20,000 or less, compared with 43.2% of people for New Zealand as a whole.
Unfortunately, passion for each side of the cause has made a critical analysis of the facts rare.
The year's stadium news began with a council decision on the issue being delayed as the trust worked to buy the land it needed, and landowners and lessees were slammed for holding out for big profits.
With Quotable Value New Zealand figures for Awatea St land at $15 million, an initial council budget of $22.2 million, and a final figure for buying land, leases and relocation at $33 million, it would seem plenty of people struck a good deal.
That is perhaps not surprising, considering nobody really wanted to sell, but the council felt it had to buy.
March 17 stood out as a major milestone for the stadium, when the council voted to continue with it, subject to a list of eight conditions.
That outcome was despite strong rumours at the time the stadium did not have the numbers.
Crs Fliss Butcher, Teresa Stevenson, Kate Wilson and Dave Cull were those who voted against the project, and they have continued their opposition.
The Otago Regional Council voted 7-4 to continue its support in June, despite a public gallery packed with angry opponents.
The city council's conditions were tightened later in the year, at the behest of Greater Dunedin councillors Cull, Wilson and Chris Staynes.
One of those conditions required the trust to show it had a minimum of 60% of the $45.5 million of private sector funding it had to raise before February, and the council had to be satisfied with the progress on the balance and any bridging finance that had to be raised.
That condition is one causing the trust some problems at the moment, as it scrambles to sell its seating packages, and trust insiders say trying to sell the seats before a sod has been turned in the construction is a hard task.
Late November marked a week of bad news for the project, the first being the early results of a survey by two University of Otago academics, which indicated 73.3% of 1400 respondents did not support public funding of the stadium.
Otago University School of Business lecturer Dr John Williams said just before Christmas returns were still coming in, and his plan was to release the final report in the second or third week of January.
Three days after the survey results were revealed, it emerged the Otago Rugby Football Union wanted to profit from the sale of Carisbrook - a move that would involve money neither the council nor the trust has - despite the union benefiting from the mostly ratepayer-funded facility.
Hot on the heels of that came news a major potential funder of the stadium - the Community Trust of Otago - had a $22 million drop in value, and was going to have to trim its donations budget back.
Recently, Carisbrook Stadium Trust chairman Malcolm Farry strongly denied that meant the stadium would not get the $10 million hoped for from the trust.
While the news has not been good recently for proponents, opposition group Stop the Stadium has also been imploding.
Three members of the group's management committee resigned in December, citing harassment from a fellow committee member.
Former vice-president Peter Entwisle complained of hectoring and abusive emails, one of which read: "Let me tell you yet again, there is no way any of us on the committee will ever want to have anything to do with you ever again.
"You fill us with revulsion. We hate to even have to think of you . . ."
Mr Entwisle was also attacked, and accused of being a council "plant", for daring to suggest claims of self-interest and corruption in relation to the stadium were unfair, and that Mr Farry was owed a debt of gratitude for the work he had done, even though Mr Entwisle disagreed with the project.
An unfortunate aspect of the split on the committee was that some of the more level-headed members, and some with a better understanding of council processes, were lost to its cause.
The group has not done itself any favours in its dealings with anti-stadium councillors, who appear to be continuing their opposition despite, rather than because of, Stop the Stadium's stand.
Part of the problem is what councillors describe as "hate mail" from opponents, even though those councillors oppose the stadium.
One felt forced to have their partner open the mail in the morning, and throw away the abusive letters, while another asked "with friends like these", who needs enemies?
Another issue is the group's tendency towards conspiracy theory, something that has prompted debate to drift away from what are very good arguments against the stadium - issues like its affordability, or the effect of rates rises on those less well off.
One former member described that phenomenon as a tendency towards too quickly attributing "malice aforethought" to people involved in running the project.
The final play of the year for the project was the suggestion a government contribution - long hoped for by supporters - just might be a possibility.
New Finance Minister Bill English indicated recently the stadium might sit within the criteria for top priority projects the Government was looking to fund.
Rodney Hide's letter to Ratepayers and Householders Association chairman Syd Adie saying he was unable to intervene in any decisions the councils may make about the stadium appeared to dash any hope for government intervention.
That leaves the project with yet another wait while a decision is made at government level, and there is no certainty that decision will fit in with council timetables.
While an injection of government funding would give a boost to the project, at least one councillor has raised concerns it might get the stadium over the line, and leave the council with hefty operational costs from what could be "a huge deficit".
Behind the scenes, the Otago Daily Times understands, there have been changes to operational projections that make the project look more risky than it already is.
Another councillor raised concerns the trust might again try to buy more time for the project if it could not meet the deadlines.
Whatever the council decides on the stadium - and it is that organisation which has kept the project going - ratepayers hoping the project will fall over, and the council will stop funding major projects, may be hoping against hope.
Even if the stadium does wither in the face of recession, there is widespread belief in the local authority it has a responsibility to keep the city from drifting from its position as a major New Zealand centre (or becoming another Invercargill), and even stadium opponents on the council are not against the idea of spending ratepayers' money on facilities they think will help make Dunedin an attractive place to live.
Cr Dave Cull - a stadium opponent - said economic development was an important role for the council in a city that lacked people between 25 and 55 years old.
To attract those people there had to be jobs in industries like information technology, publishing and software design, and he wanted to see the council "take it up a notch" to develop those industries.
While he agreed that was not a "core activity" of the council, he asked: "Who else is going to do it - look after Dunedin and its future?
The figures:
The Land
•Quotable Value New Zealand figures for Awatea St land (2007 estimates): $15 million.
•Council budget for land: $22.2 million.
Ratepayer money spent so far
•Money paid for land, leases and relocation: $33 million.
•Carisbrook Stadium Trust granted: $11.5 million.
•Interest costs: 2007-08: $218,000, 2008-09: $640,000.
Total: $45,358,000
Coming Up
•University of Otago School of Business lecturer Dr John Williams and marketing department lecturer Dr Ben Wooliscroft's stadium survey final report, probably on January 15 or 16.
•Stop the Stadium march: Saturday January 31, Dental School to the Octagon.
•Early February: Dunedin city and Otago regional councils to view progress of Carisbrook Stadium Trust, decide whether conditions set have been met, and whether to continue financial support.
•Early this year: Decision of hearings committee on a district plan change that would allow the stadium to be built at the site.
•Some time after that: Expected Stop the Stadium Environment Court challenge to that decision.
