Independent public transport, cycling and walking news & comment. Supporting all forms of moving towards a more environmentally sound NZ

Monday, June 27, 2011

Anderton on controversy over advertising of City Manager position

NZ in Tranzit -opinion, comment

I like this quote below, it appears in a very thoughtful and well written article in by senior Member of Parliament and, last year, unsuccessful Mayoral candidate,  Jim Anderton.

"Something is amiss here, and I cannot help but draw the conclusion that this recruitment and appointment process should not continue. The fact that the Council is almost evenly split on such an important appointment is in itself cause for concern. This appointment is not something that has to be rushed, and it is imperative that Christchurch has a chief executive who can unite the city and inspire confidence in tackling the very important tasks which lie ahead," Jim Anderton said.

The article appears in Voxy online news titled
Anderton: Christchurch CEO Appointment Process Contaminated


Note I have no particular stance on this, nor about the current city manager, other than a general disquiet about areas I do follow with interest, public transport. I believe the city has long lacked coherent visionary leadership in implementing appropriate (in scale and cost) technologies and strategies to give Christchurch the vastly better public transport system it could have. 

The biggest problem with public transport world wide is probably generic - those paid huge salaries to administrate or plan are not 24/7 public transport users, have little comprehension or competence in a field of engineering for which they have no genuine empathy and minimal ongoing depth experience. It is like people who never listen to music and who don't play an instrument believing they can write music that will speak to the hearts of listeners. A gross arrogance, a bumptiously patronising attitude, whose exposed incompetence continuously invites listener contempt. Where there are competent administrators, it seems to me, they tend to get over-ridden by politicians either out to blow their own trumpet with grand projects or are indifferent or atagonistic to public transport and keen to cut costs.

1 comment:

  1. The Community Board Chairs have written to the Councillors and Mayor asking for the process to be restarted too: http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/5195205/Stop-CEO-process-say-board-heads

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