Council workshop on new QLDC office building descends into farce

Today’s council workshop that tried to advance a decision on where to build a new $60 million QLDC office building could be used as an example as to why the Local Government machine is broken.

It’s taken 18 years to get to this point but already there’s talk of kicking the can down the road so that a new council can take over the task.

At one stage the council’s powerful General Manager Corporate Services, Meaghan Miller stated with more than a hint of frustration. “Councillors, I beg you – please make a decision.”

QLDC manager Meaghan Miller

By way of a wry return, Councillor Niki Gladding said: “We beg you for genuine community consultation.”

Admittedly this was towards the end of a long session where consultants had wasted 30 minutes reading out the content of their slides that everyone was supposed to have already read. A highlight of this was some sharp-eyed councillors asking what the “historic core” of Queenstown was.

Nikki Gladding was not convinced by the consultants explanation of the “historic core.”

It turned out that the “historic core” does not exist and had been invented by the consultants as some sort of statistical device. However, many councillors were very unhappy that the Ladies Mile option had apparently been dropped from the new shortlist in favour of the “historic core” – that is not an actual place or location.

Things had got off to a bad start when head consultant Tim Church shared one of the selection criteria as being that a flash new council building with a “wow” factor might influence visiting VIP’s to make more positive decisions – in QLDC’s favour – or words to that effect.

Consultant Tim Church - not an easy meeting for him

There was also a point that Councillor Gavin Bartlett had to point out to the consultants that tourists do not visit council buildings in order to better understand our culture. He added that Kiwi travellers “don’t go travelling around the world to visit local council offices.”

Councillor Bartlett also demanded to see the consultants calculations and details of how they made their recommendations, including asking for missing data on where council staff actually live and travel to work from. Like other councillors he also asked “Why does Ladies Mile keep getting excluded.”

Councillor Lisa Guy tried to explain this along the lines of her family consulting business Rationale which was paid by QLDC to come up with a CBD vision that included a performing arts centre/library/art gallery/council offices and even “showers for homeless people.”

“We’ve lost the community’s trust around the arts and cultural aspects of the project.”

Lisa Guy appeared to be seeking divine intervention to rescue “community trust in the arts and cultural aspects of the original vision.”

Mayor Lewers became impatient, not just with Nikki Gladding (again), but with the 18 years that had passed already in the decision-making process. “We’ve got to make a decision, the leases on our existing offices are running out in 2028.” He was not being funny.

Mayor Lewers “time is running out.”

Cody Tucker pointed out that the public’s trust in the council was very low and therefore the process had become more complicated.

Deputy Mayor Quentin Smith suggested the consultants findings pointed to the entire project not working (apart from the mystical “historic core”) as the costs always seemed to outweigh the benefits. The consultants appeared to agree with him.

Quentin Smith - suggested that the project’s costs outweighed the benefits - apart from the mythical “historic core.”

Other councillors voted enthusiastically to kick the can down the road.

An exhausted Mile Theelen pointed out that nobody was going to give the councillors an easy way to make a very hard decision. “Frankton or town, either could win. The council ultimately has to decide.” Mr Theelen did not include the “historic core” or Ladies Mile in this weighty summation.

CEO Mike Theelen . “The council ultimately has to decide.”

Mayor Lewers then made a reference to “a little event coming up in October” as another reason why the can might have to be kicked down the road.

In the end the consultants were sent home to do more work at the ratepayer’s expense, their mission just as vague as at the last council meeting.

And of course, part of their instructions at the last council meeting was to include Ladies Mile, and they sort of ignored that and invented the “historic core” instead.

Don’t expect a decision on the new council office building this side of the local body elections. Just a big invoice from the consultants.

Crux sent the detailed results of our 48 hour poll on the new council offices to all of the councillors and the mayor in advance of the meeting. We don’t think any of them took the time to read the email, apart from Cody Tucker.