Local Governments Core Activities?

[Zardnaar]

Over here the local councils are in a bit of crap financially. Basically they dissolved the old ministry of works and devolved authority down to the local council level. But with limited ways to fund things. Mostly rates which we pay to local councils and assets tgey have. No sales tax like USA (central government job). They can get money via building consents and other activities.

So since 1989 we been electing people who want to keep rates low. For the most part this means limited to no new infrastructure. Some of the drains in my city for example date from Victorian times. The capital is becoming infamous for bursting water mains.

One town up north has stopped issuing building consents. The local sewage system is at capacity.

So we have old infrastructure that's been run down over tge years now being slamed with double digit rates hijes with more to come. Some councils eg mine funded 180 million dollar stadiums funded via debt. That's a lot of new drains, water treatment plants etc.

The other reason is also geography. South Island is 1.2 million people and it's bigger than England with a large mountain range. Christchurch has close to 400k, Dunedin (where I live) is 130k while everywhere else is 50k or smaller. North Island smaller more people but heavily concentrated in a few locations more rural poverty than down here.

Anyway what counts as core activities for you? For me it's water, sewage, parks, libraries, sport fields etc but not big ticket items like stadiums. You need some amenities but there's a difference between nice to have and necessities (clean water, sewage etc).

You also probably need some amenities to make your town somewhat appealing but once again tens of millions vs gardens, parks etc.

 

[EnglishEdward]

There are ways round all this. If additional building increases the loading on
sewers, the local government should calculate what that is, and charge the
building developers that additional cost as part of granting building consent.

 

[Cutlass]

Different areas, different countries, do all of these things differently. Here, the city/town runs the schools, local parks, does road and sewer, is in charge of zoning and building permits, and has a variety of other services.

 

[warpus]

Some councils eg mine funded 180 million dollar stadiums.

A 30,000 seater stadium for a city of 130,000 people or so? That's somewhat excessive, no? Even all of Otago region, which seems to include a decent chunk of the southern NZ island seems to have a population of only 236,000. Was this basically one of those bad ideas put forth for a large sporting event (i.e. the 2011 Rugby WC) that's now wildly too large and expensive to maintain and rarely sells out?

It seems wild to me that the city and region of Otago took on most of the cost to build this thing. It just seems way too giant for a city and region that size. Why wouldn't the federal government help with the funding? How about any of the current tenants - Otago, Highlanders, or Southern United FC? They all seem to have started playing there in 2011 or 2012. Are they renting the place now? Does that cover the maintenance and other costs? They couldn't have joined forces to build a stadium to play in themselves?

Just seems like a badly mismanaged stadium project overall.. but maybe I'm missing something! I live in a city of 450,000 metro or so and the biggest outdoor/football/multiuse stadium we have seats about 8,000 - the local university canadian football stadium (basically just stands and a track, no roof). Our city has been "looking at" building a downtown stadium with about 10,000 capacity for over a decade now. The only projects they've seemed interested in were modular stadiums that were relatively cheap. If anyone tried to put forth the idea of building a fancy 30,000 seater here to be paid for almost exclusively with public funds.. that'd be political suicide I think. Even so with mainly local public funds! That just seems like madness. And we live in a somewhat populated part of the continent! There's 450k people living in the city's metro like I said, but we're right in the middle of the most populated part of Canada as well.

You have to drive about an hour and a half to reach the nearest outdoor/football stadium that seats more than 20,000 (in Hamilton). If you drive about an hour further you can also get to the 30,000 seater football (read: soccer) stadium we have in Toronto. It's going to be temporarily upgraded to 45,000 for the upcoming world cup. Any talk of building a new stadium for the WC has basically been a severe non-starter. And that's in a city that has a metro population of 6 million! It is in this context that a city of 130,000 building a fancy 30,000 seater funded almost exclusively by local public funds seems insane to me. How could local politicians justify funding something like this while at the same time ignoring badly needed city infrastructure upgrades, as stated? Why wouldn't these politicians be then quickly voted out of office?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

A 30,000 seater stadium for a city of 130,000 people or so? That's somewhat excessive, no? Even all of Otago region, which seems to include a decent chunk of the southern NZ island seems to have a population of only 236,000. Was this basically one of those bad ideas put forth for a large sporting event (i.e. the 2011 Rugby WC) that's now wildly too large and expensive to maintain and rarely sells out?

It seems wild to me that the city and region of Otago took on most of the cost to build this thing. It just seems way too giant for a city and region that size. Why wouldn't the federal government help with the funding? How about any of the current tenants - Otago, Highlanders, or Southern United FC? They all seem to have started playing there in 2011 or 2012. Are they renting the place now? Does that cover the maintenance and other costs? They couldn't have joined forces to build a stadium to play in themselves?

Just seems like a badly mismanaged stadium project overall.. but maybe I'm missing something! I live in a city of 450,000 metro or so and the biggest outdoor/football/multiuse stadium we have seats about 8,000 - the local university canadian football stadium (basically just stands and a track, no roof). Our city has been "looking at" building a downtown stadium with about 10,000 capacity for over a decade now. The only projects they've seemed interested in were modular stadiums that were relatively cheap. If anyone tried to put forth the idea of building a fancy 30,000 seater here to be paid for almost exclusively with public funds.. that'd be political suicide I think. Even so with mainly local public funds! That just seems like madness. And we live in a somewhat populated part of the continent! There's 450k people living in the city's metro like I said, but we're right in the middle of the most populated part of Canada as well.

You have to drive about an hour and a half to reach the nearest outdoor/football stadium that seats more than 20,000 (in Hamilton). If you drive about an hour further you can also get to the 30,000 seater football (read: soccer) stadium we have in Toronto. It's going to be temporarily upgraded to 45,000 for the upcoming world cup. Any talk of building a new stadium for the WC has basically been a severe non-starter. And that's in a city that has a metro population of 6 million! It is in this context that a city of 130,000 building a fancy 30,000 seater funded almost exclusively by local public funds seems insane to me. How could local politicians justify funding something like this while at the same time ignoring badly needed city infrastructure upgrades, as stated? Why wouldn't these politicians be then quickly voted out of office?

Have you ever read the Alberta news pages on CBC?

Danielle Smith (in the running for the worst premier we've ever had) believes in bread and circuses, as in if she does 204598290 photo-ops/summer of her attending rodeos and other events, flipping pancakes and pretending to work in the kitchen of a restaurant she used to own (we knew something wasn't right given her lack of hair net and gloves and wearing open-toed sandals), and essentially gallivanting around on the taxpayers' dime, this gives us the bread. If she decides to cut back on funds for firefighting but happily funds a new hockey arena that most people in the province can never afford to go to for a game, that gives us the circuses. What that money should have been used for is hospitals (so many emergency rooms closed and Red Deer has needed an expansion or a second hospital for DECADES), fixing the school situation, mitigating fire risk, and so much more. And her faithful sycophants love her for it. Her FB page reads like a Christian revival tent at times, with her as the one being praised.

And now I read that she's planning to implement her own version of the UnFair Elections Act for municipal elections (can't have those pesky low-income, seniors, disabled, indigenous, homeless riff-raff actually VOTING, right?). After all, she's got a ton of Take Back Alberta stooges to infiltrate municipal politics (one of them made it onto our local city council in a bye-election earlier this year).


The current provincial government basically wants to set itself up as dictator-for-life (someone should mention to Danielle what happened to the last person who tried that). They want the power to be able to control the municipalities to the point where they can arbitrarily fire any municipal politician who they think isn't acting in the "best interests" of the province. In other words, if a mayor or council member stands up for the citizens of their city, they can be fired. Ditto school board trustees if they defend LGBT kids against the increasingly bigoted policies that have been or are going to be implemented.

Who needs democracy when we have Saint DanYell?

 

[warpus]

A mayor getting fired? I didn't think that was even possible. I suppose I am not surprised, given that Alberta is the what Alabama of Canada?

 

[Broken_Erika]

A mayor getting fired? I didn't think that was even possible. I suppose I am not surprised, given that Alberta is the what Alabama of Canada?

I always thought it was closer to texas, 'cause of the oil and rodeos.

 

[Zardnaar]

A 30,000 seater stadium for a city of 130,000 people or so? That's somewhat excessive, no? Even all of Otago region, which seems to include a decent chunk of the southern NZ island seems to have a population of only 236,000. Was this basically one of those bad ideas put forth for a large sporting event (i.e. the 2011 Rugby WC) that's now wildly too large and expensive to maintain and rarely sells out?

It seems wild to me that the city and region of Otago took on most of the cost to build this thing. It just seems way too giant for a city and region that size. Why wouldn't the federal government help with the funding? How about any of the current tenants - Otago, Highlanders, or Southern United FC? They all seem to have started playing there in 2011 or 2012. Are they renting the place now? Does that cover the maintenance and other costs? They couldn't have joined forces to build a stadium to play in themselves?

Just seems like a badly mismanaged stadium project overall.. but maybe I'm missing something! I live in a city of 450,000 metro or so and the biggest outdoor/football/multiuse stadium we have seats about 8,000 - the local university canadian football stadium (basically just stands and a track, no roof). Our city has been "looking at" building a downtown stadium with about 10,000 capacity for over a decade now. The only projects they've seemed interested in were modular stadiums that were relatively cheap. If anyone tried to put forth the idea of building a fancy 30,000 seater here to be paid for almost exclusively with public funds.. that'd be political suicide I think. Even so with mainly local public funds! That just seems like madness. And we live in a somewhat populated part of the continent! There's 450k people living in the city's metro like I said, but we're right in the middle of the most populated part of Canada as well.

You have to drive about an hour and a half to reach the nearest outdoor/football stadium that seats more than 20,000 (in Hamilton). If you drive about an hour further you can also get to the 30,000 seater football (read: soccer) stadium we have in Toronto. It's going to be temporarily upgraded to 45,000 for the upcoming world cup. Any talk of building a new stadium for the WC has basically been a severe non-starter. And that's in a city that has a metro population of 6 million! It is in this context that a city of 130,000 building a fancy 30,000 seater funded almost exclusively by local public funds seems insane to me. How could local politicians justify funding something like this while at the same time ignoring badly needed city infrastructure upgrades, as stated? Why wouldn't these politicians be then quickly voted out of office?

Sells out for big events. We had an older facility of around 20k.

Earthquake wrecked Christchurch one and replacement has ballooned to around 400 million.

Central government has delegated various activities post 1989 without the means to fund them.

Capital

Ratepayers across Wellington region face increases as long-term plans approved

Councils across Wellington have signed off their 10-year long-term plans after contentious public debates in recent months.

www.rnz.co.nz

 

[Valka D'Ur]

A mayor getting fired? I didn't think that was even possible. I suppose I am not surprised, given that Alberta is the what Alabama of Canada?

She also plans to opt Alberta out of CPP and the RCMP. Right now she's targeting Edmonton and Calgary because the mayors there don't support the UCP and they're... let's just say, not "Old Stock Canadians" (Red Deer has one of our MLAs in the cabinet, currently ruining health care the way she ruined education in the previous mandate, the mayor is of the "right" ethnicity, so she hasn't targeted us yet). The right wing here tosses around the word "woke" and our premier has put a stop to covid reporting (though word does get out; there are still people getting it and some have died). Smith believes in horse medicine for treating covid and has cut funding to pharmacies giving out the proper covid vaccines.

Alabama is apt in some respects; the comparison was made a few years ago with the daft curriculum being partially plagiarized from Alabama's curriculum. Texas is apt for oil and rodeos and the growing number of people (right-wing men, mostly) who think life here is wonderful, and yes, let's do put a stop to women accessing reproductive health services, shame on them for not wanting to have 10 children even though it's hard nowadays to afford even one. And OMG, get rid of sex education in schools and declare open season on LGBT kids by refusing to call them by their preferred names and pronouns without the parents' written permission (never mind that for some kids it isn't even safe for them to come out to their parents).

 

[Klaus Hergersheimer]

Anyway what counts as core activities for you? For me it's water, sewage, parks, libraries, sport fields etc but not big ticket items like stadiums. You need some amenities but there's a difference between nice to have and necessities (clean water, sewage etc).

Well...I believe in paying to have the privilege of living somewhere, so actually parks and libraries and sports fields as you mentioned would be "out". Stadiums WAY out. These things should be for residents who care to uphold them, which means user fees.

Meanwhile everyone needs water and sewage and roads even if you're just passing through, so those would be a tangible public good of a sort.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Well...I believe in paying to have the privilege of living somewhere, so actually parks and libraries and sports fields as you mentioned would be "out". Stadiums WAY out. These things should be for residents who care to uphold them, which means user fees.

Okay, think about this. Are you saying that I should have to pay a user fee just to walk through, or rest a few minutes in the parks in my city? I'm talking about everything from City Hall Park to a residential playground, to the hiking/biking trails that crisscross this city for more miles than I can remember at present?

NO. Parks are necessary for people's mental health and public morale. They're necessary for physical health, as most have something for kids to play on, and where people can go for a walk or bike ride. I know a couple of places along these trails where you can get free saskatoon berries, if you know where to look and get there early enough when they ripen.

I used to work in the interpretive centre for Waskasoo Park, mostly in the bookstore, but also answering tourists' questions (funny how we had tourists from Texas, France, and England, but a local taxi driver couldn't find the place; this is actually a large urban park and wildlife sanctuary within the city limits). I gave astronomy talks there in the late '80s - some formal, some informal. The weirdest thing I had to deal with was a bunch of scavenger hunters who came in several small groups, all of them seeking an acorn and used teabag. I gave them directions to where they could find acorns without having to roam the sanctuary or trespass in anyone's yard, and sold them teabags which they could use however they wanted to fulfill the rules of the hunt (I wasn't about to let them rummage through the garbage!).

The activities were mostly free (some groups might book the facilities now and then, and of course we charged for the pop, coffee, tea, and whatever food might be part of various activities). But there was no charge to get into the place, and no charge to hike the trails. That's insane.

Some things cost now that didn't used to. Library memberships aren't free, and you need to be a member to borrow books, get interlibrary loans, and use the computers. It's still free to just go in and read or write, and have a meal or snack at the coffee kiosk. Security kicks out homeless people most days, though; they're not allowed in. And I was given a disapproving stare the time when I had to inject insulin (had gone downstairs to the bathroom near the art gallery; hardly anyone ever used it, so I figured it would be private enough; of course a librarian wandered in just then and I had to explain, "I'm diabetic and need to take insulin; I'm not doing anything illegal.").

Museum admission used to be free. People were strongly encouraged to donate, and they tried to make me pay admission when I was there to sign paperwork for a donation of an artifact I was making to the Archives; they weren't happy when I refused. I said I had no intention of paying just for the privilege of walking through the lobby into an office area to sign a couple of papers and then leave. They were still twitchy about it, so I said, "I promise not to look at anything, okay?" So they finally shut up and let me get on with my errand (I'd donated some pictures and a scrapbook from the craft co-operative I used to be part of; since everyone else on the board of directors had died by that point and the store hadn't existed for many years, I figured there was no point in holding on to it and maybe the museum would like it; they evaluated it and said yes, you just need to sign a couple of papers and it's done.).

And since I did mention homeless people, should they be barred from parks or playgrounds for non-payment? Someone suggested the other day that they should all be rounded up and put somewhere "just outside the city" - miles from the social service agencies, of course.

 

[warpus]

I always thought it was closer to texas, 'cause of the oil and rodeos.

Facts.. However, aren't the large cities in Texas relatively progressive overall? I'm not sure if the same can be said about the large cities in Alberta.. but correct me if I'm wrong.

Sells out for big events. We had an older facility of around 20k.

Earthquake wrecked Christchurch one and replacement has ballooned to around 400 million.

Central government has delegated various activities post 1989 without the means to fund them.

Capital

Ratepayers across Wellington region face increases as long-term plans approved

Councils across Wellington have signed off their 10-year long-term plans after contentious public debates in recent months.

www.rnz.co.nz

Thanks for the added context!

Well...I believe in paying to have the privilege of living somewhere, so actually parks and libraries and sports fields as you mentioned would be "out". Stadiums WAY out. These things should be for residents who care to uphold them, which means user fees.

Meanwhile everyone needs water and sewage and roads even if you're just passing through, so those would be a tangible public good of a sort.

User fees for parks? Wouldn't you have to hire people to watch guard over the park to make sure nobody enters for free? That all sounds sort of backwards to me if you don't mind me saying so. I mean, wouldn't you need to erect fences and hire extra gardeners and others to make the entry fee worth it? I visited a pay-to-enter park in Tokyo once. It was fancy. There were various buildings you could enter, including a really nice greenhouse / glassy building with parks and waterfalls and other such things. If you just had an average park and made it pay, nobody would go.

Besides, a city needs green spaces and other public spaces for citizens to assemble and relax. It's good for mental health! There's your tangible benefit. And who needs water coming out of the taps? Just collect rainwater. C'mon

 

[Arwon]

We don't have a local government where I live so clearly nothing is a core local government competency.

Why wouldn't the federal government help with the funding. How about any of the current tenants - Otago, Highlanders, or Southern United FC? They all seem to have started playing there in 2011 or 2012. Are they renting the place now? Does that cover the maintenance and other costs? They couldn't have joined forces to build a stadium to play in themselves?

I mean for starters New Zealand isn't a federation.

More generally though, Australia and NZ teams rarely have the money to pay for major infrastructure, they don't have private owners or anything like that. Even the biggest clubs barely turn over as much money as an individual mid-sized supermarket location. Sport teams are at least an order of magnitude smaller than the teams in the major North American leagues.

I think I can only think of two stadiums in Australia which weren't built by government, and one of those was the Sydney Olympic stadium which was later bought by the state government to bail the owners out while the other was bought in a "rent to buy" type arrangement by the AFL, the largest sporting body in the country, after 20 years of private operation.

Stadium funding usually happens at state level, but not always - there's a few local government funded ones or split funded ones.

They're just pieces of civil infrastructure, basically all in Australia are done with public money, from the 100k person MCG through to regional stadia. The flipside here is people expect stadiums to be well located, easy to get to, supported by public transport, rather than just plonked in a giant empty space surrounded by car parks like a lot of North American stadiums.

As for Forsyth Barr specifically, Otago is just the affiliated district rugby union team underneath the Highlanders, I don't think the provincial championship they play in is professional. Foor the Highlanders themselves, they look like they spend about $7m to 10m per year total, so the surplus or profit they could plausibly put into a capital works project like a stadium would be nearly nonexistent.,Southern United were semi-professional when they existed and now they don't. Forsyth Barr in Dunedin is also fully enclosed with a roof, which added to the cost a decent amount.

 

[Zardnaar]

Beer festival at said stadium.

Loses money every year it was initially pitched as they would raise millions via corporate sponsor and the Otago Regional Council would chip in 10 million.

Didn't happen.

 

[Arwon]

I didn't realise until recently how much more powers local councils had in some countries. Here it's pretty much nothing of vital importance, largely just some zoning decisions and rubbish collection:

• local roads, footpaths, cycle ways, street signage and lighting
• waste management, including rubbish collection and recycling
• parking
• recreational facilities such as parks, sports fields and swimming pools
• cultural facilities, including libraries, art galleries and museums
• services such as childcare and aged care
• sewerage
• town planning
• building approvals and inspections
• land and coast care programs
• pet control.

Pretty much anything important is at least state level:

• schools
• hospitals
• roads and railways
• public transport
• utilities such as electricity and water supply
• mining
• agriculture
• forests
• community services
• consumer affairs
• police
• prisons
• ambulance services

Which is why it doesn't matter that Canberra doesn't even have a local government, and why the 30 or 40 city governments in Sydney and Melbourne basically don't matter 99% of the time.

They're so low priority that a couple weeks ago the Liberals, one of the two major Australian parties, just forgot to file nominations for a bunch of local councils in NSW so now they just can't run and they lose their seats. And a bunch of councils have ended up with people elected uncontested because nobody else nominated.

 

[Zardnaar]

I didn't realise until recently how much more powers local councils had in some countries. Here it's pretty much nothing of vital importance, largely just some zoning decisions and rubbish collection:

• local roads, footpaths, cycle ways, street signage and lighting
• waste management, including rubbish collection and recycling
• parking
• recreational facilities such as parks, sports fields and swimming pools
• cultural facilities, including libraries, art galleries and museums
• services such as childcare and aged care
• sewerage
• town planning
• building approvals and inspections
• land and coast care programs
• pet control.

Pretty much anything important is at least state level:

• schools
• hospitals
• roads and railways
• public transport
• utilities such as electricity and water supply
• mining
• agriculture
• forests
• community services
• consumer affairs
• police
• prisons
• ambulance services

Which is why it doesn't matter that Canberra doesn't even have a local government, and why the 30 or 40 city governments in Sydney and Melbourne basically don't matter 99% of the time.

They're so low priority that a couple weeks ago the Liberals, one of the two major Australian parties, just forgot to file nominations for a bunch of local councils in NSW so now they just can't run and they lose their seats. And a bunch of councils have ended up with people elected uncontested because nobody else nominated.

Ours are similar but they do water.

Voter turnout is stupidly low 10-20% iirc.

 

[KMRblue1027]

In my state at least local government's primary responsibility is policing which honestly I think should be handled at the county not Township level, and education which is fine to be locally controlled.

 

[Tee Kay]

Pretty much anything important is at least state level

Nah I appreciate the work that councils do. Sewerage is very important for one!

Recreational facilities and libraries are non-commercial "third places" for the community

And planning affects the built environment that's the water people swim in

But major decisions and regulations touching local government responsibilities have heavy state government involvement anyway, even if councils deliver the services at the end user point. At the end of the day it's the state government that controls how local government functions and can fire councillors or redraw local government boundaries.

Ultimately life between one council area and another isn't radically different. In Australia, anyway.

 

[Arwon]

Nah I appreciate the work that councils do. Sewerage is very important for one!

Recreational facilities and libraries are non-commercial "third places" for the community

And planning affects the built environment that's the water people swim in

But major decisions and regulations touching local government responsibilities have heavy state government involvement anyway, even if councils deliver the services at the end user point. At the end of the day it's the state government that controls how local government functions and can fire councillors or redraw local government boundaries.

Ultimately life between one council area and another isn't radically different. In Australia, anyway.

When you consider that in other countries, local government is running things as big as education, police, health, social services, national elections, it's a big gulf in responsibilities.

 

[Yeekim]

In Estonia:

§ 6. Functions and competence of local authority​

(1) The functions of a local authority include the organisation, in the rural municipality or city, of the provision of social services, the grant of social benefits and other social assistance, welfare services for the elderly, cultural, sports and youth work, housing and utilities, the supply of water and sewerage, the provision of public services and amenities, waste management, spatial planning, public transportation within the rural municipality or city, and the construction and maintenance of rural municipality roads or city streets unless such functions are assigned by law to other persons.

(2) The functions of a local authority include the organisation, in the rural municipality or city, of the maintenance of pre-school child care institutions, basic schools, secondary schools, hobby schools, libraries, community centres, museums, sports facilities, shelters, care homes, health care institutions and other local agencies if such agencies are in the ownership of the local authority. Payment of specified expenses of such agencies from the state budget or other sources may be prescribed by law.

(2.1) At the time of increased defence readiness, state of war, mobilisation or demobilisation, the local authority shall organise, in addition to the functions provided for in subsections 1 and 2 of this section, the social welfare of the families of victims of military action and persons occupying war-time positions of military rank and contribute to the evacuation of persons and the provision of accommodation, catering and medical care to evacuees.