Bob LeFridge 
Wellington's sewerage problems seem to be escalating. Now there's poop exploding out of people's toilets in Miramar. How gross!
When the Luxon government lobbed all of the government's Three Waters costs onto Councils, I'm sure even ardent Nat fanbois didn't expect reality to hit this hard.
In Waitaki the Council has approved a plan to increase water charges by 90% over two years from $1352 to $2566. That's water only... it doesn't include rates.
Queenstown Lakes has signed off on rises which will take the current average $1,500 water bill to $4,889 over eight years.
That is unsustainable for many people. It's never been more expensive to live alone.
https://crux.org.nz/crux-news/new-qldc-cco-water-charges-set-to-rise-to-a-future/
GoldSo, WCC is going to sell Wellington Water so they don't have to raise rates to fix the infrastructure. I would love to know how much of the rates bump would cover that. Then compare that to the new cost for water from the new company. #NZPol #WCC #ThreeWaters
Snap! Gisborne beaches are also no go zones with poo discharged into the water after heavy rain.
Marsden"Another obvious trend that was reflected throughout the country during LTP deliberation was that the local government funding model is not broken — it’s absolutely ruptured.
...
At present in the South Island there are 21 councils, with 21 mayors, ... and work forces still basically shackled to the structure Wellington created for us, to take our communities out of the era of the night cart."
#NZPol #LocalPolitics #CouncilFunding #ThreeWaters
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/350340701/entrenched-three-waters-thinking-has-led-waterloo-crisis
StrypeyThe NatACT government's Fast Track legislation takes final decisions over resource management consents away from regional councils, and hands them to government ministers. Think Big 2.0?
I look forward to strong non-partisan resistance from all the people who supposedly objected to Three Waters not because it was Labour policy, but because they thought it gave central government too much control over what were rightly local decisions.
The Gore District Council has calculated that they'll need $465m to upgrade their three waters infrastructure over the next thirty years.
Queenstown's boil water notice has finally been lifted.
"The interim fix at Two Mile to meet compliance comes with a $1.4 million price tag."
https://crux.org.nz/crux-news/no-more-boiling-water-as-regulator-gives-queenstown-all-clear/
"Three Waters was the former Labour government's solution to improving water services.
Hastings mayor Sandra Hazlehurst said everyone wanted better services but the reforms were unaffordable for local bodies."
#AnnekeSmith, 2023
So... what about maintaining your water infrastructure properly by borrowing against your own balance sheet? That affordable?
So Phil Pennington says on RNZ that server contracts for Three Waters are going to a company controlled by the surviving Koch Brother;
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Koch_Brothers
Just... why?!?
This is being driven by a government-mandated "cloud first policy", despite the fact that as well as reducing control over services and data, putting servers in the "cloud" almost always ends up being more expensive than any other way of hosting servers.
Just... why?!?