Sometimes You Have To Laugh

Came across this on Timeframes

From 17 December 2010 with this explanation

Description: The cartoon shows a report on ‘Stadium Southland’ which lists five problems; sagging roof trusses, cracking in pillars, inadequate wall foundations, building code concerns and compliance delays and alarm bells that don’t work. Someone has scrawled across the report ‘Surely this list should have alarm bells ringing????’ A second version has the last problem reading ‘Alarm bells not switched on’. Context – The stadium collapsed in September 2010 under the weight of snow. Defects were appearing only two years after the building was completed in May 2000. The original engineer in charge of the project, Tony Major, said cost restraints were behind the “under-design” of some elements of the stadium, including the concrete foundations and the trusses.

The Stadium

For those who don’t regularly check on Cracker’s blog, I thought I’d highlight that he has the Hyland Report on the stadium collapse (released today)

UPDATE:  Only thing I’ve looked at is the ‘Weld Quality’ (119), (isn’t that one of the things Karl Barkley was saying?)

WELD QUALITY (emphasis mine)
The welding was inspected by an experienced and CIBIP qualified welding
inspector from MTL. The purpose of the inspection was to determine if the
welds would comply with the Structural Steel Welding Standard AS/NZS
1554.1 Visual Examination criteria for Structural Purpose (SP) quality
welds.

None of the welds observed were found to comply with the SP quality
criteria in AS/NZS 1554.1.

Oh, dear:-o

Upskill Mr King

In today’s paper we have Richard King sticking both feet in his mouth resulting in him not having a leg to stand on

Mr King yesterday said he stood by the council’s decision to have Mr Smith and McCulloch speak behind closed doors, both so commercial and industrial negotiations could be carried out without prejudice or disadvantage, and on the grounds of confidence.

All good but you should have stopped there…

“If we were to make the whole discussion public it would be prejudicial to the stadium trust because of the negotiations they still have to do.”

You can’t make local government (LGOIMA) decisions to protect them, if they come to you, they do it under your terms (and rules and regulations) and they should probably be mindful that they themselves are using public monies and therefore have responsibilities to be open and transparent.

If ever there was a situation that required a ‘workshop’, this was it, no decisions or recommendations, purely informative.  Add to that, it wasn’t on the agenda,  your failings in handling it peaked our interest.

Probably should make sure you get the story straight too

A secret meeting between Stadium Southland bosses and Invercargill city councillors this week did not reveal any new details about the stadium rebuild, The Southland Times has been told.

Not all of the information discussed behind closed doors had been in the newspaper, he said (Richard King).

“There’s always something new.”

 

Bit Slow Southland Times

From the Southland Times  today we have this.

I’ve checked my emails and I was informed on the 29th of January.  That’s a long time before the paper managed to get hold of it.  I really thought that would get around like wildfire.

Well Done ILT!

Maybe they took my advice (LOL!) and stepped aside.  Well done ILT!  I, for one, have a better opinion of you.

I am confused by this statement though

The ILT is a commercial organisation and must support its business brand at every opportunity. However, in this case we think the size of Mr Crimp’s donation to the community outweighs our needs

I assumed it was the same setup as gambling venues, in that there are two entities and never the twain shall meet.  I consider them as two groups, ILT (commercial organisation) and ILT Foundation (charity).  I haven’t looked into it and I don’t have the time or energy at the moment.

Silly me, I assumed ILT ran the business that held enough funds to ensure the long term viability and expansion of the business and paid a dividend or portion to the Foundation.  Even as I type this though I am wondering if the ILT Foundation is the Gambling Act required charity for the gambling machine profits to go to and not anything to do with the alcohol related part of ILT.

Don’t have time to look it up right now.  Hopefully someone can enlighten me.

It’s Not Tricky

Evan Harding is back in his prominent front page position I see.  I can’t blame him for what he’s reporting, I assume this statement comes from public perception and possibly the trustee’s;

Mr Crimp’s conditional offer appears to put the stadium owners, the Southland Indoor Leisure Centre Charitable Trust, in a difficult position when deciding whether to accept it.

If anyone believes it’s a difficult position maybe they should remember the responsibilities they (SILCCT) have as trustees..’to act in the best interests  of the Trust’.  Unless they have a conditional agreement with ILT in place (which yesterday’s article implied there was not) they should base their decision on the best interests of the Trust.

Can they get the $2m elsewhere without conditions?  Doubt it, it seems like they’ve tapped out everyone else.

However, stadium trust chairman Acton Smith said yesterday there was no way the stadium trustees would be falling out with the licensing trust over the issue.

Reading between the lines, it looks like the stadium trust would bow to the wishes of the licensing trust.  One would hope the stadium trustees remind the licensing trust that they have had the benefit of many years of naming rights, generously granted by the stadium trustees at the time and now the stadium trustees have to consider the Trust and what it is trying to achieve, the rebirth of Stadium Southland.

Considering ILT Velodrome is only it’s formal name, the majority of us just call it ‘the velodrome’, what does it matter?  Nothing stopping the stadium trustees having a sponsor board on the building with ILT having the most prominent position.

As for the licensing trust ELECTED MEMBERS;

Licensing trust president Alan Dennis said its board members had informally discussed Mr Crimp’s offer at a meeting yesterday, though it wasn’t on the agenda.

The board members agreed the offer was “very, very generous and exciting”, Mr Dennis said.

However, it was not up to the licensing trust to make the decision on whether to accept the conditional offer.

So they’ve discussed it and agreed the offer was “very, very generous and exciting” – then support it, show your commitment to Invercargill residents (who elected you) and do the gentlemanly thing and step aside.  Don’t make it ‘tricky’ for the stadium trustees, as Mr Dennis said:

The final decision must come from the stadium owners, the Southland Indoor Leisure Centre Charitable Trust. It will be in their hands.

We are very hopeful that something can be worked out, because it bridges the funding gap, but the stadium owners will make the final decision.

By all accounts, this is a dying man’s wish and it will help everyone achieve their goals, to help rebuild the stadium for the betterment of Invercargill and Southland.

So I ask the ILT elected members to doff their collective hat and step aside.  The credit you receive for that alone is better PR than the naming rights will ever be.