Sensitive files posted to the dark web, Auckland’s new mayor gets to work and police on the scene in Wattle Downs in the latest NZ Herald headlines. Video / NZ Herald
New Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown has arrived at council headquarters and met the chief executive ahead of a financial briefing this morning.
Brown arrived at council headquarters and fielded questions from waiting media at 8am.
Stabback said there had been a couple of hours set aside to present Brown with the council books.
Chief finance officer Peter Gudsell and governance director Phil Wilson would be alongside Stabback to present the briefing.
Brown has started the job today with some stern words for the directors of the council-controlled organisations.
Responding to the resignation of Auckland Transport chair Adrienne Young-Cooper only hours after his election victory on Saturday, Brown said it was “very good” and he respected her for it.
Asked about a statement from the remaining board members saying they plan to stay on, he said “everyone remains for a little bit”.
He spoke of an interim period of “weeks” for the remaining directors, saying he wanted to discuss the matter with the new councillors, many of whom he had not yet met.
Asked which directors he was addressing and what is their future, Brown said: “I made it very clear I was keen to take back some controls, which means they have a clear direction of what they do and the types of people appointed to it.”
He spent his first day in the job surveilling the “realm” in a helicopter.
Brown did his best to stay out of the limelight, cancelling a number of media interviews, to spend time with his family before beginning the business of running the country’s biggest city today.
However, he did find time for a family photograph at Western Park in Ponsonby and a few words with the Herald before contemplating a quick trip to Piha, where he likes to surf, but admitted to being a “bit dusty” after Saturday night.
Yesterday, the incoming mayor, his son and his partner spent 90 minutes in the morning cleaning up the mess from a party the night before at Ponsonby Central.
Then it was time to “survey the realm” in a friend’s new helicopter, heading west to Piha where the “surf was bloody good… and dozens of surfers everywhere”.
He flew to the edge of the Kaipara Harbour and followed the rail line back to Helensville and the growth areas of Kumeu and across Hobsonville Point, getting a bird’s eye view of the “amazing growth in the northwest” with lots of spare land for more housing.
“And you think, what a shame we are putting houses on the Pukekohe soils. You look out around Kumeu, scrape off that much topsoil [he indicates a few inches] and it’s yellow clay,” Brown said.
He said the city looked beautiful but there were some ugly bits, pointing to blocks of crowded houses at Karaka jammed up, told not to have carparks, and no bus service.
“How did that happen?” said Brown, who pledged to “Fix Auckland”, including infrastructure and taking back control of the council-controlled organisations (CCOs), in particular Auckland Transport.
Only hours after Brown’s emphatic win over Labour councillor Efeso Collins, AT chairwoman Adrienne Young-Copper resigned immediately in response to a call from the new mayor for the whole board to step down.
“It is clear that the mayor-designate wants a clear runway,” Young-Cooper said in a statement. “I willingly exit the role.”
In an exclusive letter to Aucklanders written for the Herald on Sunday, Brown said there is no agency about which the Super City dwellers are angrier.
“I think the board of directors should heed the message from the election and offer to resign,” he said.
Just 31 per cent of Auckland’s nearly 1.2 million eligible voters took part in this year’s local elections
Brown will today spend most of the day being briefed on the council’s books, its economic forecasts over the next three years, and all contingent liabilities and other risks.
The briefing will also include the finances of the four CCOs and other entities in which ratepayers have an interest.
Brown may issue a statement later in the day on the state of the council’s finances.
This week, Brown also plans to meet with all 20 councillors to congratulate them in person and to discuss how they can best help deliver the change Auckland voters have demanded.
He also intends to meet with the leadership of the Independent Māori Statutory Board, and with his main mayoral rival and former Manukau councillor, Collins, to discuss how they can help contribute to the change Aucklanders have voted for.
Collins said he was always open to meeting with Brown, adding he had spoken to him yesterday afternoon “where I again offered my congratulations”.
“We reflected on the campaign, our mutual respect for one another and had a few laughs.
“We’ve agreed to catch up over a beer when time allows.”
