A suggestion an independent commissioner is needed to hear submissions on the Otago Regional Council's "ground breaking" rural water regulations turned into a major debate on integrity and public perception, at a recent committee meeting.
Otago commercial fishermen have retained their right to take rock lobsters smaller than the national standard, following a four-year review of the fishery.
The possibility that regional councillors could be sidelined and any accountability to the public lost if the Government adopted proposals by the Land and Water Forum has horrified Otago regional councillors.
Otago Regional Council staff deny considering Forsyth Barr Stadium's budget for rates or talking to the Dunedin City Council before they proposed cutting the rates bill for the roofed venue.
Otago Regional Council ratepayers will face a 3.86% general rates rise in the coming year.
While the Department of Conservation may be able to absorb the majority of a $11.5 million cut to its budget, indications of further cuts mean reviews of its services, particularly in area offices, continue.
The Otago Regional Council will consider cutting Forsyth Barr Stadium's estimated rates bill by more than half to $74,900 at its meeting tomorrow.
Ratepayers in the Lower Taieri Flood Protection Scheme could have their proposed rates rise of 10% reduced by half if a recommendation to an Otago Regional Council committee is approved.
Having to clean up the base of St Paul's Cathedral before Sunday services after the area has been used as a toilet by revellers the night before does not do justice to the city, cathedral dean the Very Rev Trevor James says.
There is little in the Budget that helps people who need it the most, Otago Presbyterian Support chief executive Gillian Bremner says.
Finding out she had breast cancer was a shock for Lynn Taylor but fast diagnosis and surgery made the process much easier to bear.
The Otago Regional Council has found a new home for its public meetings - the Salvation Army in Princes St, Dunedin.
Carey Knox, the Dunedin man who saved 16 smuggled Otago Peninsula geckos in 2010, has been awarded an inaugural international conservation award.
Despite there being all the ingredients for high air pollution figures, Otago's skies are staying cleaner than usual so far this winter.
Two Dunedin film students have added another award to their shelf for their film Gone Curling.
Under-reporting deaths of nationally critical sea lions by the arrow squid fishery in the Auckland Islands "paints a grim picture" of New Zealand laws designed to protect the marine mammal, a University of Otago researcher says.
Dr. Libby Weaver does not believe eating a whole block of chocolate or packet of biscuits in one go is about willpower.
It is disappointing the Land and Water Forum's latest report has not added anything to the debate on the pitfalls of national "bottom lines" for the state of New Zealand's waterways, Otago Regional Council policy and resource planning director Fraser McRae says.
It's raining, it's cold, it's dark, you're in pain and you don't want to be there, but it's how you deal with those difficult moments that really counts, Olympian Bruce Kendall says.
NHNZ is working with a Korean company to develop cost-effective software able to turn high-definition television into 3-D programmes.
