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Play, download and edit the free video ORC - Alexa Forbes.

It’s hard for Crux to cover the Otago Regional Council from Queenstown. It’s not just the distance to their HQ and meetings in Dunedin, but a cultural battle that seems peculiar to the ORC. The battle features water users, farmers, irrigators, environmentalists and conservationists along with strong controversial characters such as Michael Laws and Marian Hobbs, both involved in an ugly coup last year.

But there’s more. The ORC seems at times hell bent on self-destruction and even managed to spend $10 million of ratepayer’s money on a failed attempt to find a new, grand headquarters for itself – with nothing to show for that money. Now the Central Otago Environmental Society has launched a petition calling on the Environment Minister, David Parker, to dismiss the entire Council.

Just when the entire saga seemed ready to descend into farce, Queenstown ORC councillor Alex Forbes has written a strong analysis piece, with a really amazing video, that sort of explains everything. She sees no point in the ORC being dismissed by the Minister and still holds out some hope (admittedly small) that the ORC will somehow get its act together and do the job it is paid to do.

After all, they just put up their rates by 49% and are sitting on cash and assets worth at least $700 million.

Read Alexa’s coverage – and weep or laugh – either way it’s an education in how local democracy is in deep trouble across the region.

crux.org.nz/community/this-is-how-a-river-dies-high-drama-and-dysfunction-at-the-orc/

From Alexa Forbes, ORC Dunstan Ward/Queenstown Councillor.

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