Friday, November 25, 2005

Lights, red carpet ... no cash


LawsWatch yesterday wondered just when the Diva and Deputy Dotty were going to come clean with the punters over the River Queen cash cock-up. Watchers didn’t have to wait long.

All was revealed when an angry mob in the form of Mainstreet’s Ritichie Minnell descended on the community meeting yesterday to protest at the high-handed and just plain stupid plans that were being developed to close off the Embassy block for over 12 hours on the day the red carpet is rolled out for the Mayor, Mayoress and sundry other VIPs.

The Diva was wisely absent so a bout of questioning from councillors meant the bad news had to be delivered by Dotty, who once upon a time was talking about a $1 million extravaganza to launch the flick that a leading American critic has called a waterlogged would-be epic. Despite lots of secret huddles over the last couple of months the ratepayers haven’t yet been told they’re up for any more than the $150,000 allocated when the sorry saga started got its first dose of reality.

Dotty fessed up and said the road closure plans were being dropped on an unsuspecting retail community because:

little consultation had been done because Verve* had yet to fully engage in the work. Verve have begun initial discussions, but we haven’t actually signed a contract with them because we are waiting to get funding.
* the high-priced Wellington movie spin doctors

To paraphrase Variety magazine’s River Dog review, Dotty’s explanation was lacking the emotion, narrative invention and visual brilliance that mark the Diva’s best spin.

So, just how deep is the financial doggy doos that Dotty now finds herself in? Well, no one seems to have talked about that, presumably because they’ve been caught by confidentiality rules applying to "commercially sensitive" discussions at previous committee meetings. But less than two months ago the Chron told us Dotty was "optimistic" that sponsors would come to the party with over half of a targeted $400,000 party fund. She has announced just one $30,000 donation since that heady moment.

According to the Watchers' special spin calculator that, plus $150,000 committed by the council, leaves a shortfall of $220,000 smackaroos. But not to worry, back in September Dotty told the Chron:
We are hoping for $400,000 but if we can’t we’ll tailor the event to what we’ve got.
Alert Watchers detect the muffled off-stage sounds of a flurry of spin being prepared to soften up the ratepayers for an even bigger cash splash, and dare we suggest a call to Dotty’s dressmaker ordering up a sexy little premiere number of sackcloth and ashes for the stroll down the red carpet.

Update (Saturday 7.30 am): When the cat was away on Thursday Dotty was quoted as saying: "Verve have begun initial discussions, but we haven’t actually signed a contract with them because we are waiting to get funding." Then the cat came back and she's quoted in today's Chron saying: "I never said that." The Chron continues "She said there were other reasons a contract was yet to be signed but would not comment further." No apology or retraction from the Chron, no "we stand by our reporter" (Sean). Nothing really.

Earlier update (Friday 2.15 pm): As this appears to be yet another Wanganui project that's going to have to, in the Diva's words, "cut it's cloth" to suit inadequate funding, Watchers might like to suggest how Council could "tailor the event to what we've got". A couple of red carpet tiles, perhaps... the Diva and the rest of the glitterati could huddle together on one whilst the other was thrown at their feet by adoring ratepayers, then the tile they'd step off of could be brought round to the front, and so on. Slow progress, but then that seems to be the hallmark of all the Diva's promises.

Comments on this post are now closed.

49 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting piece in the Chron. River Dog is starting to bark, Phil.

'Cr Sue Westwood thought that was wrong.

“I have a concern here. From what the deputy mayor said, Verve have no statute, no right to do anything yet,” she said. '

So, they haven't hired the organisers (Verve) yet. They haven't consulted with anyone about the road closure (don't have to, but...), and, in fact, they haven't even got themselves organised to hear the application, which Verve can't make 'til they get hired.

What a shambles. And Mickey has the cheek to blame local businesses. It's Dotty's trainwreck, Mickey: you can't say you weren't warned.

Anonymous said...

Trainwreck?

Let's face it, you couldn't even put Dotty in charge of the Little Engine that Could and expect her to keep that on the tracks.

Still, she's probably got the full house sign up at her "establishment" for the big day, so it'll likely be just the ratepayers who lose out here.

Anonymous said...

Yesterday the Diva ruefully confessed the whole River Dog sponsorship debacle had acquainted him with one little homily that he should have learned at his mother’s knee between runaway bouts as a school kid:

“This council can lead the horse to water – but it can't make it drink.”

Our mother taught us another lesson that has trickled down from mothers since Abraham Lincoln’s time:

“You can fool some of the people all of the time (the Vision caucus), and all of the people some of the time (enough of them to vote you in, anyway), but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.”

Anonymous said...

Some anonymous jerk who writes a lot like the mayor wrote:

"Now there's a useful queston: when was the last time ANY Wanganui resident had a book published that reached the best-seller lists?? "

You don't actually know much about Wanganui, do you "anon"? Margaret Shannon, for instance, may not be on New Zealands bestseller lists, but you don't have to be when you acheive international sales, do you?

Anonymous said...

It's a pity Mickey was away from the meeting: he could've offered them $20k for their little film festival.

Anonymous said...

Mickey's put the mockers on this show from the start. His remarks about the cost/benefit equation didn't help, to put it mildly, and he's hardly been pushing the event since then. Of course, he's probably a bit busy, what with all his non-mayoral engagements.

I say we use the $150,000 to pay off debt, and use the red carpet for real community events.

Anonymous said...

LawsWatch wrong as usual -
ML has written three books & all were best-sellers - Demon Profession was 8 weeks in the best-seller lists with a high point of #3, Dancing with Beelzebub 2 weeks with high point of #10, and Gladiator 12 weeks with highpoint of #1. When anyone else in Wanganui gets this sort of success for their books, be sure to let us all know.
Now there's a useful queston: when was the last time ANY Wanganui resident had a book published that reached the best-seller lists??

7:32 AM, November 25, 2005

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

That's a good question. when was the last time?

Anonymous said...

Council has committed $150k and said it will cut its cloth accordingly.

Anonymous said...

Don't worry Dot,
just get Mickey to flog off a few more properties. that will pay for the red carpet and a new party dress

Anonymous said...

You're very negative people aren't you. Don't like RiverQueen, Jimmy Barnes, Splash Centre, sports events. Not exactly MAINSTREAM are you? Ever thought of leaving?

Anonymous said...

The mayor is giving his monthly Town Hall meeting with a full Q & A session at the Council Chambers 12 noon Monday. Why not front up then if anyone has any questions??

Anonymous said...

Why do you assume that every pro-Michael Laws comment is written by the mayor? I support him and I'm not. Is this your way of dealing with those of us who do think he's doing a great job? One of my friends put me onto this web address but theres nothing here except negative people and negative ideas.

Anonymous said...

I assume you won't be back then, anon, if you find this all such a trial.

But you're wrong to claim there's only negative people and negative ideas here.

You hero Michael, for a start, postively floods this blog with positivity at all hours. He's positive about his books, his family, his mayoralty, his pet projects, his opinions on just about everything.

If it's negativity you're after check out his comments about his fellow councillors and council staff in the Federated Farmers speech, for instance. Or you could pick any back issue of the Sunday Times at random to find him oozing negativity about everything from councillors (yet again) to cabinet ministers to sole parents to well, just about everything really.

Just take your pick but please don't come in here moaning in such a negative fashion.

Anonymous said...

Splash Centre, sports events

what shit are you talking now? I voted for the splash centre and teach sport. You're stupid if you think everyone in those categories loves your Mickey. Mainstream? How mainstream are your National Socialist views?

Anonymous said...

Meanwhile, just what is the deal with Jimmy Barnes?

IN the now-closed post that commenter who-isn't-the-mayor (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) said

"JB - no, because the last council wouldn't have underwritten a rock concert."

and then:

"The Council have provided a regional publicity drop advertising the event and contributed cash."

Is he breaching meeting confidentiality - and if so, when will the ratepayers be told -- or is he making this stuff up?

Laws Watch said...

What we find so fascinating in all this talk of book sales is the remarkable access that anonymous has to publishing data.

An (admittedly fairly perfunctory) Googling didn't yield information on anything but Gladiator.

Asked to confirm Mickey's claims that his other two tomes were also best-sellers, Lorain Day, Commissioning Editor at HarperCollins, told LawsWatch "This isn't information we would make available for these purposes" (the "purposes" being verification of these claims).

Yet how very well informed anonymous seems to be. Perhaps you could point us towards some sources, anonymous?

Anonymous said...

Booksellers NZ publish a best-seller list every week. It used to be every fortnightand as one involved in the retail trade, we used to publish them and direct shop displays around them. All of Michael Laws books featured on that list.

Anonymous said...

Laws is popular with mainstream wanganui people - I wouldn't call a school staff room mainstream :)

Anonymous said...

RQ will be a success and Wangas should embrace it instead of calling it River Dog. How bloody negative.

Anonymous said...

Everyone knows that council provided the cash to publicise the "trilogy" of summer events in Wanganui - letterbox drop and I got one in my Dominon a couple of weeks ago.

Anonymous said...

Whassamatter Lawswatch? Never written a bestseller? No ......

Anonymous said...

"This isn't information we would make available for these purposes" (the "purposes" being verification of these claims).
Lorain Day, HarperCollins.

Purpose of being a dickhead I think she means.

Anonymous said...

anon ..." I voted for the splash centre and teach sport."

Since when was guitar plucking an Olympic event, John?

Anonymous said...

Yeah you are negative LawsWatch. running down a film premiere in your city is negative in the extreme.

Anonymous said...

Anon 1.55pm

Yes, there ARE positive people who visit this blog from time to time, AND who like Michael and what he's doing for Wangas. It's just that, well, we only visit from time to time, whereas these other negative nutters sit poised over their keyboards 24/7. Mmmm doesn't bear thinking about, does it.

Anonymous said...

The only really useful job a local polly can do is get the budget right. Vision have not only not budgeted for their flagship policies, they are prepared to rob funds from other projects (like debt repayment, like the arts sector) to pay for them. This would be bad enough already, but what makes matters worse is that everything they touch (like River Dog, like the Youth Council) turns to shit.

So they not only take money away from projects that actually have some grass-roots support, but they make a dog's breakfast of the alternatives.

Truly incompetent, approaching negligent in fact.

Anonymous said...

This apparent run of incompetence is a poor start for the new CEO, isn't it? Shouldn't he be making sure that ALL councillors are provided with all the information they should have -- and through them the ratepayers. And that loose ends like this contract-that-isn't don't get to the meeting stage?

It must be a salutary experience for him to find himself in this position.

Anonymous said...

I just wish they'd put some red carpet on the footpath in my street.

My elderly neighbour took a fall there the other day and it's hard to explain to her that her rates, especially since we didn't get a "nil rates rise" in this area -- are going for more important things, like red carpet film extravangas for the mayor and his lady friend.

Anonymous said...

Re the coming referendum. In view of the fact that we're being constantly told how deeply the city is in debt, how will any "winning" projects be funded?

They're having to borrow & sell for the pool and waterfront work, so will this apply to things on the next referendum, like water fluoridation and softening - or will only projects that they mayor supports get funded anyway?

Laws Watch said...

Yeah you are negative LawsWatch. running down a film premiere in your city is negative in the extreme.

They can premiere anything from the biggest Hollywood blockbuster to the smallest made-with-a-handycam indie film in Wangas and we'll be there to cheer them on.

But not if they expect to premiere it with our money.

It's odd that Lawsmob are all for spending ratepayers' cash on this particular art form, yet rally behind their leader in scoffing at spending money on other art forms that don't happen to be to his liking.

Either all art should stand alone on it's merits or it's worth subsidising. And, if you believe the latter, then the capricious personal tastes of one man are not a platform for sound policy.

Anonymous said...

All this bleating of "negativity' by Lawsmob is pretty rich considering Mickey's track record. It's not negativity, you blinkered buffoons, it's criticism. Us arty types get used to it, but as soon as anyone critiques your darlink Diva's work he's puffing and strutting and releasing red herrings. Poor puppy, but we're still going to rub his nose in it until we get a Council that can do its job for the whole community, not just the narrow-minded minority.

Anonymous said...

There is some real crap relayed here that parades as fact.
First, the council is spending an additional $120K on the repair of fotpaths this financial year;
second, the arts aren't getting 'robbed'. Wanganui just overwhelmingly said that the Sarjeant extension wasn't a priority.
third, how do you hold a film premiere in a city without spending $. Your council got off light if their max commitment is $150k
fourth, this is the council praised all over NZ for getting a handle on finances and getting a nil rate increase.
You ARE negative LawsWatch. If you weren't, you wouldn't exist.

Anonymous said...

"Allan Hunter’s review in Screen Daily is more positive and predicts the film could provide a diligent distributor with “a modest, middlebrow art house success.”

It's strange that this determinedly anti-elitist-art mayor is beating the drum for a flick that a critic, trying to be positive, describes as possibly successfully in a "modest, middlebrow and art house" kind of way.

And that Variety magazine says: "Having driven most of its Toronto industry screening audience into a deep slumber or early exit River looks to be cast out to sea by most theatrical buyers."

Clearly the lure of that red carpet is obviously a powerful aphrodisiac for a self-professed onanist.

Laws Watch said...

You ARE negative LawsWatch. If you weren't, you wouldn't exist.

We accept that point. If people want to read the unedited positive spin on events they have the choice of the Council website, the Diva's own website, or the Chron.

We'll occasionally post links to those sources but assume that our readership is literate enough to consume a balanced diet of information. Without LawsWatch, that balance would be non-existent (aside from the occasional letter that slips through to the Chron).

With the lack of any real opposition (in the political sense) to diVision, this blog questions, criticises and, where we can, exposes. We're no more in the business of promoting Mickey than Don Brash is responsible for Helen's spin.

But without an opposition you're left with a totalitarian state. The role which the blog fulfils is, we feel, a positive one. But equally, anyone in a position of pointing out the foibles of those in power is inevitably going to be perceived as negative.

Anonymous said...

"First, the council is spending an additional $120K on the repair of fotpaths this financial year;
second, the arts aren't getting 'robbed'."

More dissembling from LawsMob. The point made by my elderly neighbour is that she doesn't want ANY of her rates money spent on a film premiere that she has no interest in.

If there's surplus cash around she'd rather it was spent fixing footpaths but better still, she'd rather it was used to help keep rates down.

She, like a lot of other ratepayers, thinks the council's job is to maintain basic infrastructure especially when we keep hearing from the mayor about the so-called debt "crisis."

And she's been around long enough to know that she'll be hit by even bigger rates rises in coming years, if she's around that long.

Anonymous said...

This blog is also a useful source for information that hasn't necessarily got anything to do with any political stance.

For instance, as someone with an interest in seeing the port developed I was interested to read hear about the River City Port plans a month or so ago.

I expected something to appear in the Chronicle but there hasn't been a word about it. Likewise, in the last few days, there hasn't been so much as a peep about the debt issue and the way the debate was shut down, that was covered here.

And as for the community contracts debacle that has affected a huge number of organisations in town and is causing a lot of anxiety -- not a word about that in the Chron either, though it was supposed to have been discussed by the council yesterday.

We just aren't been served well by our daily paper and the wall to wall mayoral press releases in the weekly giveaways make them a joke.

The Chron is overdue for a big shakeup and perhaps LawsWatch will help make that happen by showing up their shortcomings.

Anonymous said...

" ... if she's around that long."

Perhaps the mayor can arrange a special CCTV screening of the red carpet moment for all those old folks hospitalised with broken hips due to fractured footpaths.

That'll cheer them up no end as they wonder how they're going to pay their rates bills.

Anonymous said...

Laws Watch - don't you need to do an update on this blog entry to take up the Chronicle story of today?

Anonymous said...

The article in the Chronicle this morning on the by-election worries me because not many people are taking any interest and with Christmas coming they'll be taking even less.

Anonymous said...

Dotty's call (or maybe it was the spin fairy) to Mr Maslin probably went something like "Michael's really really mad and he said to just blame the Chron and deny I said it, okay John?"

Anonymous said...

A question. Events city. Mixed motivation?

A certain hotel in Wangas has 57 Rooms.

57 * 20% increase in occupany X $100 per night = $416000 per annum.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, true, but Dotty believes Wanganui can be a conference centre, when at best it's a workshop centre. She really has no idea.

(10 minutes 'til kick-off hooaaaaaa)

Anonymous said...

A certain hotel?

Which hotel? What's with the cloak and dagger?

Anonymous said...

The point made by my elderly neighbour is that she doesn't want ANY of her rates money spent on a film premiere that she has no interest in.

I'm sure in her time, she has been taxed and rated on many things she had no interest in. That's the way the cookie crumbles. Personally I have no interest in my hard earned tax dollars going towards hospitals, never needed them. If I ever did need medical assistance I'm more than willing to pay for that when it arises.

The River Queen movie may not be so great, but I'll support it. Why? Because some things (like supporting Wanganui as a whole) are far more important than petty squabbles.

"We all want leaders to make decisions and boot 'em out when they do!"

Anonymous said...

Oh dear, why does Sunday Star Times hate Wanganui so much that it has to mention the not-so-nice reviews for River Queen (water-logged, uncompelling) not once but twice, and even in the "editorial".

It's just hate-filled and negative and like just about every other major newspaper (and even the Chron) they are clearly only mentioning these reviews in a beastly attept to ruin the Wanganui ratepayers' representatives' moment of triumph.

Hate and negativity is everywhere, it seems.

Anonymous said...

Politics is a strange beast, whether national or local. Last week we saw one Bauble-Grabber say "Give Winston Peters a second chance" one day then "I didn't say that" the next.

Wanganui has its own Bauble-Grabber, it seems, who also shares Winston-First's other specialty of deny-everything-and-blame-the-press.

One day Deputy Dotty says: "We are waiting to get funding" and the next, "I never said that".

Who needs Winston when we've got his old string-puller pulling Dotty's strings?

Anonymous said...

A revealing addition to the mayor's e-site - the mystery blonde solved and we'd better get along to the Chambers tomorrow to find out this "new option". Let me guess: sell the Sarjeant.

Anonymous said...

4,000-5,000 people at the Jet Sprints at Upok today and opened by ML - its scary the no of petrol heads on this area.

Anonymous said...

Bloody great day out the Jet Sprints were.
Went last time too. Went when they were at the stock car track as well(before Mickys time)will go again next time. Had nothing to do with Mickys call for me to attend and support this Wanganui event or the fact he was opening it. Being a petrol head beats the hell out of running the Mayoral mile.
Well done and thanks to the Jet Sprint organisers.