On Tuesday night, Dunedin City Council chief executive Sandy Graham sent councillors and the Otago Daily Times a ‘‘substantive response to the various matters’’ raised since a public update on the South Dunedin Future programme was released last week.
It followed days of contention from some elected members over perceived process failures and calls for a report on the programme to today’s council meeting be rewritten to address apparent shortfalls.
In her four-page missive to councillors, accompanied by legal advice prepared by Simpson Grierson, Ms Graham said the matter would remain on the agenda.
‘‘Regarding the reference by some elected members to the report being ‘climate alarmism’ along with indulging Māori, I reject these assertions and find it discourteous to iwi, staff and scientific consultants,’’ Ms Graham said.
The comment she referenced was part of an email sent to councillors, senior council staff and the ODT on Friday night, written by Cr Lee Vandervis and endorsed by Crs Brent Weatherall, Jo Galer, Russell Lund and Andrew Simms.
In it, Cr Vandervis said the report, which asked councillors to consider approving consultation for three proposed shortlisted options to manage long-term flood risk in the suburb, lacked detail and was inconsistent with the Local Government Act (LGA).
In a separate email to Ms Graham, shared with the ODT by Cr Vandervis, he asked the legal advice evaluate the report’s relevant assumptions in line with LGA requirements.
This was supplemented by an artificial intelligence (AI) summary of ‘‘what sections of the LGA 2002 outline requirements for staff to include relevant assumptions in agendas for local government decision-making’’.
In Tuesday’s email, as an aside, Ms Graham noted the use of AI in forming a ‘‘legal challenge has put council to considerable time and expense and has found no legal irregularity with the report’’.
Yesterday, Cr Vandervis said the council had posed two questions when it asked Simpson Grierson to provide advice, ‘‘when councillors had posed many more compliance questions’’ of the agenda item.
‘‘The Simpson Grierson advice fails to address most difficulties with the [South Dunedin Future] three shortlisted approaches as a result.’’
Although the council did not respond to ODT questions yesterday, including the cost of legal advice and how specifically AI use had drawn on council resources, an email from Ms Graham to councillors said she expected costs to be about $5500, excluding GST.
The Otago Regional Council, which runs the South Dunedin Future programme in partnership with the city council, considered the same consultation options at a meeting yesterday.
They approved consultation for the three proposed options and a fourth added during their meeting — an engineered flood protection system.
Yesterday, Cr Galer told Ms Graham the legal advice did little to address her concerns the programme’s communication approach was mismanaged.
In recent days, she and Cr Lund threatened to lay a complaint against the council with the ombudsman and sounded out plans to initiate and fund a judicial review of staff actions.
Their concerns stemmed from a non-public councillor briefing on June 10 and a subsequent media briefing last Wednesday, which included maps indicating areas where private property might be bought for flood mitigation works.
Cr Galer said the advice did not satisfy the reasons for a private briefing followed by public information release before councillors had considered consultation options.
‘‘It doesn’t really address the why. There is still no justification for this matched to the actions of yourself and staff.’’
Cr Simms had called for a ‘‘baseline engineering solution’’ to be considered alongside the shortlisted options to provide a benchmark and genuine choices would be put in front of the community.
Yesterday, he said his key outcome would be for this solution to be included as an option in public consultation.
The meeting was due to start at 8.30am.
