The Wellington City Council’s special meeting to address the planned outsourcing of council services brought a mixed bag of results yesterday. Celia Wade-Brown, Wellington’s Green Mayor, cast her vote for the first stage of outsourcing to continue with the result that the street cleaning and gardening work has been outsourced.
That’s 27 jobs gone. You can hear the Mayor trying to explain herself to Mary Wilson here. Her excuses are so right-wing she sounds like a less competent Kerry Prendergast.
On the good side of the ledger, all other proposals to contract out are halted after a unanimous vote to review. There will now be a review of whether the remaining CitiOperations ground would be better to remain in WCC but so far there’s no sign of what the review will entail.
The main thing now is to make sure the consultation process is the real deal with representative reviewers and proper consultation. One thing is for sure – it’ll be a defining issue in this year’s council elections.
And on the subject of the elections, Wellington voters may be interested to know that Labour Councillor, Justin Lester, voted with Wade-Brown to outsource the street cleaner jobs. The Greens’ Iona Pannet (Lambton Ward) and Labour’s Paul Eagle (Wellington South) upheld their party values and voted against it.
Powered by WPtouch Mobile Suite for WordPress