Auckland ratepayers may face years of rates rises to pay for Auckland’s liability for leaky homes. Six Auckland councils have agreed to participate in the Government’s leaky homes package, with councils and the Government each paying 25 percent of repair costs and homeowners the rest. The councils will merge on Monday when the super city [...]

As Super City debate on CCOs and all things Super heats up – the absence of criticism  of Mayor Andrew Williams continuous “Wolf” cries last year – is conspicuous. It increasingly appears that the Mayor was dead right with emphasis on the “dead” for local body politicians to have a significant input into local matters. [...]

A Select Committee has been told new council-controlled organisations for the Auckland super-city lack democratic accountability. The committee is in its first day of hearing submissions on the Local Government (Auckland Law Reform) Bill, the third and final bill required to implement the Government’s decisions on governance arrangements for the Auckland region. Rodney District Councillor [...]

Controversial Mayor Andrew Williams will swap Supercity wrangling for handbrake turns next weekend. The North Shore leader will line up in a race to find New Zealand’s fastest personality at the Top Gear Live event at Auckland’s ASB Showgrounds. Williams will test his skills behind the wheel against fellow mayors Bob Harvey from Waitakere and [...]

The meeting, organised by North Shore community organisations, is on Monday. Ms Kaye, National Party MP for Auckland central and a member of the select committee on Auckland governance, will talk about the select committee process and how to make a verbal submission, on the Super CIty. She will also discuss the best ways for [...]

North Shore Mayor Andrew Williams is urging North Shore residents to make their submissions to the third Auckland governance bill before the closing date of 12 February. “This is a very important piece of legislation, the final bill required to implement the Government’s decisions on governance arrangements in the Auckland region,” he says. Submissions can [...]

Fish are apparently much more cunning than we think, sans sea slugs, according to new Australian research. So surely total unrecall by politicians, may prove unfathomable in light of new evidence which suggests even Nemo could recall most of his past. Australian reserachers have discovered that fish can remember and adapt, way beyond three seconds [...]

By Claire Ahuriri North Shore City councillors have rejected the proposal to change the free parking at Constellation and Albany bus-ways to a charge of $2. Instead, they are going to lobby the Auckland Regional Transport Authority and the New Zealand Transport Agency, since their cuts in subsidies are what brought this issue to the [...]

Today high profile politicians and social policy leaders will present their vision for Auckland at a groundbreaking Super City conference on the North Shore. Social Development Minister Paula Bennett, Local Government Minister Rodney Hide, Manukau mayor Len Brown, North Shore mayor Andrew Williams, Rodney mayor Penny Webster, Waitakere deputy mayor Penny Hulse and MP Phil [...]

NSCC may be represented by a number of one or two-member wards and a number of  local boards at the grassroots democracy level,  the NZ Herald reported today. A Local Government Commission has proposed 20 boards as well as four single-member wards with eight two-member wards. The Commission will release details tomorrow.