About 90 people attended a public meeting on the "state of our rates" at the Green Island Rugby Club last night.
An organiser, who declined the give his name or say if the meeting was organised on behalf of any group, said it was simply an opportunity to get to know candidates for the Dunedin City Council.
Council finances took centre stage.
Mayoral candidate Cr Lee Vandervis was guest speaker and said that, as mayor, he would have greater power to investigate and reduce council spending.
His proposal to remove the Otago Regional Council from Dunedin brought applause and the mention of the word "cycleways" got a laugh.
Cr Vandervis said artificial intelligence could play a bigger role in limiting council bureaucracy.
Fellow council candidate Robert Hamlin said Dunedin needed disagreeable people to "say no" to bureaucracy and back up Cr Vandervis if elected mayor.
"I am a disagreeable person," he said.
Lianna MacFarlane is running for mayor, the council and for the Saddle Hill Community Board.
She said she wanted a forensic audit conducted on the council’s finances.
Any candidate who did not stick to their elected promises would be "named and shamed" by her, she said.
She also suggested publicly identifying councillors who were "big spenders".
Otago Peninsula Community Board and council candidate Hugh O’Neill said the council was morally, culturally and financially "bankrupt".
He said he wanted to organise a week-long symposium of Dunedin’s best minds to develop goals and strategies for the city.
Also running for the Otago Peninsula Community Board was Donna Katae who said she was standing to bring local government back to basics and return "power to the people".
Questions from the floor were largely directed at Cr Vandervis and covered the potential sale of Aurora, rates capping and replacing the city council’s single transferable vote system.
