There you go. Mayor Sideshow Bob and his council chums handed over a staggering $3 million for the Ellerslie Garden Show.
The $3 million bought the Christchurch City Council 'the naming rights' and the so-called 'administrative infrastructure' - oh, and an opportunity for Sideshow Bob to boast about the purchase in the national media.
In the depths of an economic recession spending this kind of money on a garden show is outrageous. Remember, this is the same Sideshow Bob who tried to put council rents up a massive 24 percent.
This is the same Sideshow Bob who was instrumental in making big cuts to community funding.
This year there has been a $750,000 cut to community funding. Sporting organisations, welfare groups, health bodies and cultural groups have all had their funding cut.
The Christchurch City Council is proposing to cut $30m in real terms from its community grants funding over the next ten years.
Sideshow Bob has gone into PR mode - or should that be damage limitation?
It was 'just a one-off cost to the city,' says Bob, as if that makes everything alright.
Furthermore the purchase of the Ellerslie Garden will apparently add ' significant value to the city's Garden City image.'
Really? How exactly? What kind of 'value' is Bob talking about? Or is he just making things up as he goes along?
We can have no confidence in anything Sideshow Bob says. After all, he also told us that spending $17 million on five over-valued city properties belonging to Dave Henderson was also a great deal.
Sideshow Bob and his council chums have got their priorities seriously wrong.
In general terms Christchurch Council seems to pay about 30% above market value for everything it collects.
ReplyDeleteThats flowers, Dave Henderson, Castle in the air on Hereford, new bus station, Lyttelton Port shares and so on ... and why are we buying up large in the first place.
Its important to realise that compared to the Council Chambers and the new Bus Station are massive compared to the flower show.
However the Ellerslie profit of $230,000 is not true.
Costs are missing. For instance the bankers rate cost on the $3 million paid.
This is $180,000. Wait till next year. People will only remember the wait to get in and how bland it all was on an otherwisw cold boring week end.