Ratepayers concerned about the Dunedin City Council's financial involvement with the Forsyth Barr stadium continued yesterday to vent their feelings about the situation to councillors hearing submissions on the council's draft annual and long-term plans yesterday, offering various thoughts on how the council could approach the problem it was now "landed with".
Some, like Jeff Dickie, suggested the council had credibility issues with ratepayers, which could only be regained by including in its budgets a forensic audit of both the Carisbrook Stadium Trust and the Otago Rugby Football Union.
"Had ratepayers been honestly informed from the outset, as to the true cost, as to the outrageous land/lease purchases and to the negligence in contracting an anchor tenant, it is highly unlikely indeed we would be faced with the now ludicrous possibility of ratepayers directly funding professional rugby."
He urged the council not to waste any more ratepayers' money on sport.
His view that the stadium had been an "enormous flop" was shared by several submitters over the first two days of the public hearings on council draft budgets.
Speaking on behalf of the Dunedin ratepayers and householders association, Lyndon Weggery said he was astounded by the losses reported from the council-owned company that ran the stadium and was disappointed the full costs of the stadium would not be known until nearly the end of the public hearings on long-term budgets.
He called on the mayor to consider apologising on behalf of present and past councils for the lack of consultation on the stadium, which he said would go along way to cementing ratepayer support for the project.
That was important, considering even auditors of the long-term plan were saying the council's assumption that the stadium would generate sufficient cash- flows was a key risk to the city's financial strategy.
That situation had resulted in the association reluctantly supporting reducing the stadium debt faster by reducing the term loan on the stadium from 40 years to 20 years, one of the decisions councillors will consider next week as they deliberate over the proposed annual and long-term budgets.
Dunedin resident Paul Campbell said the stadium issue had split the city and suggested people who supported rugby should pay a "rugby rate" repaying all the money the council had paid to the professional sport.
"I want to see a rugby rates line on my rates bill . . . I'm sure there will be volunteers keen to pay for it as rugby supporters.
"I think if they start paying the costs, it will heal the division in the community between those people who support the stadium and those who don't."
