Feedback floods in over council budget cuts

Feedback on Auckland Council’s draft 2023/24 budget is well up on usual response rates, with 1599 submissions received from the Devonport-Takapuna Local Board (DTLB) area.

Across the city, a record 34,922 people and groups replied to the Have Your Say process, with a late rush before the 28 March cut-off date.

More than three times as many submissions were received as were lodged on the previous year’s draft budget. Record numbers came from those who identified as Maori or Pasifika.

Council staff will now collate the feedback, which will go to local boards in May, to help members decide how to allocate reduced funding to support local activities.

With more than 60 per cent, or $810,000, proposed to be lopped from discretionary funding for the DTLB area, the board is already “looking at all the options”, its chair, Toni van Tonder, told the Flagstaff.

20 years ago in the Flagstaff

• A dispute between North Shore City Council and Bayswater Marina Ltd threatens to delay construction of a multimillion-dollar ferry terminal at Bayswater. Drawings have been completed and work is due to start at the end of 2003.

• The Depot takes over the running of Spiral gallery in the Auckland CBD, giving a massive boost to emerging artists.

• Neighbours of Stanley Bay School are outraged the board of trustees failed to consult them before revealing plans to build a large school hall.

• The Devonport anti-spray group, which hacked holes in the Devonport Domain cricket pitch, remains at large.

• Doctor Benni Bonnin, who paints to relieve job stress, exhibits at the Depot.

• Fullers reveals it dumps thousands of litres of sewage from the ferry Kea into the harbour each day. Bylaws allow Fullers to dump waste 500 metres from the shorelines of Devonport and Auckland City. Councillors are furious that dumping is happening when North Shore City is doing its best to clean up sewage outflows. Discharge facilities, so waste can be unloaded in Auckland, are being investigated.

• Amateur historian Harry Bioletti (89) publishes his 10th book, Devonport New Zealand Book 2

• A cliff at the end of Ngataringa Bay collapses after heavy rain.

• The Navy chops down seven pōhutukawa on Calliope Rd to stabilise a 40-metre cliff in danger of collapsing.

• The 2003 Devonport Arts Festival is declared a success, with a bigger event planned for 2004.

• Allegations that North Shore Rugby Club is poaching young players from the Navy are denied by Shore chairman John Sarah.

• A poor batting performance by North Shore against Papatoetoe all but ends its chances of winning the Auckland two-day championship.

• Team New Zealand public relations man Murray Taylor is the Flagstaff interview subject.