Re: the Stadium. To pre-empt tomorrows headline, the decision open to Council today was not (very sadly) whether or not we wished to voluntarily offer the stadium a further $1.8M of ratepayers funds every year. Given the exceedingly optimistic funding model/operating model that was established/assumed by the Council at the time of the stadium decision, and the significant debt for which Council is ultimately answerable and which needs to be paid back, we did not have a luxury of choice in that regard. We did, however, have the choice between A. formalising that cash requirement in such a way that it is anticipated annually and provided for in our budget, or B. having a situation where unrealistic stadium budgets are continually not met, leaving a hole at the end of each financial year that needs to be filled from cash surpluses or some other ad-hoc measure. We opted for the former. It gave me no pleasure, and I look forward to hearing from you all during LTP time if you think there is a better approach we can adopt! (Remembering as per my post from a couple of days ago that closing it down would be very likely to cost us more - check out full details at dunedin.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/476566/ma_council_r_StadiumReview_2014_11_24.pdf). Approximate resolution passed at Council today (dont have exact wording, sorry - will post when I have obtained unconfirmed resolutions from staff) - 1 That the Council: - Agrees that the Forsyth Barr Stadium should continue to operate. - Replace the DVL directors with the DCHL directors as an interim arrangement while the governance arrangements are reviewed. 2 That Council, through the draft 2015/16-2024/25 Long Term Plan, consult on: - Transfering ownership of DVL (owner of the Stadium) and DVML (operator of the Stadium) to DCHL. - Reviewing the rental for the Stadium. - Funding the renewals requirement of $10.464 million for the period 2015/16-2024/25. - Transfering $30 million debt from DVL to the Council. - Amending the Financial Strategy to modify the debt limit and debt ratios to accommodate this additional Council debt as part of the 2015/16-2024/25 Long Term Plan process. 3 That the Council: - Requests that the financial implications of closing the Stadium (and associated assumptions) be included in consultation documents for comparative purposes. - Notes that staff will report back prior to the 2015/16-2024/25 Long Term Plan meeting in January 2015 on options to minimise the impact of the proposed changes on ratepayers. 4 That DVML be asked to keep a close watching brief on the use of artificial turf world wide, and to report back to Council when it believes that its installation would cost-effectively improve usage without negatively impacting on the Stadiums commercial revenue stream.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Nov 2014 07:05:34 +0000
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