Now for the Miracles of Saint Dotty

Watchers have been moderately amused in the past week to see what appears to be the start of the canonisation of Deputy Dotty by Pope Michael Laws I and his conclave of diVisionary cardinals. Just a week ago an anonymii whispered in the comments section of this blog that:

Word is that Dot & Mickey have made a deal to swap places. He's so certain he'll be Deputy Mayor (as a Councillor), he's now planning which 'celebration' of the capital projects Dot will front in November. (12:15 PM, May 14, 2007).

A continuation of the Laws-Vision trainwreck for Wanganui, but a cosy arrangement for a mayor who knows his time is up, and the puppet deputy he so assiduously selected, fashioned and trained to dance to his mad tune. More convincingly, it’s the only way he could hope to keep his hands on the strings of power while also keeping Dotty from spilling her bags of dirt on the papacy of Michael in a gloves-off campaign against him for the mayoralty.

But as students of the wider church know, sainthood can’t just happen on the day the election campaign starts. As Wikipedia tells us,

“… the act of canonisation … occurs at the conclusion of a long process requiring extensive proof that the person proposed for canonisation lived, and died, in such a way that he or she is worthy to be recognised as a saint.”

While Dotty might well claim sainthood on the grounds that her years of officiating at the opening of an envelope while the real mayor is off doing his media thing(s), beatification usually requires a miracle or two. Hence, it was no surprise when John Maslin breathlessly and unquestioningly reported Mickey’s claims of sainthood for Dotty and the District Holdings crew who had managed to turn, not water into wine, but city debt into city surplus.

Holding co hailed as council saviour (19.05.2007 )

THE PERFORMANCE of the Wanganui District Council Holdings Ltd has been hailed as the major reason for a turnaround in council’s financial fortunes, helping turn a projected deficit into a forecast surplus. …The council is now forecasting a budget surplus of $265,000 for the quarter ending March this year, representing a major shift from the December 2006 forecast of a $384,000 deficit.

Read on and the fine print tells us the key reasons why the Council was headed for a whopping deficit for the quarter:

“….$150,000 for legal fees involving 24 separate legal actions council is involved in [and] $185,000 economic development overspend…

So we have Wellington lawyers from Sue Grabbit and Run cranking up the fees for a council that is so incompetent and litigious as to get itself involved in “24 separate legal actions” and a council that is so incompetent and so beholding to its mad mayor’s events city meisterplan that it has allowed $185,000 to be tossed at disasters like Mickey’s Boxing Day concert blow-out.

Never slow to spin a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, Mickey saw this as a golden opportunity. After months of hysteria about the previous council’s alleged failure to account for the international downturn in forestry returns, Mickey now tells us that the latest “miracle” had a lot to do with the flow-on effects of an upswing in forestry (that HIS council was too incompetent to forecast) and property returns, a lower interest costs:

The improvement from the previous quarter is mainly due to additional dividends from Wanganui District Council Holdings Ltd and forestry, additional income from Council properties and a reduction in interest costs.

And once he’s drawn a discreet veil over the bad news of the management bumbling that led to the deficit in the first place, Mickey returns to his favourite fantasy:

Mayor Laws said that the new managerial and financial structure at Council "has markedly improved internal efficiency and ensured that ratepayers' monies are properly spent. The Audit Office is no longer knocking on Council's doors every five seconds!"

And let’s not overlook this wee caveat emptor:

The surplus is a forecast and could change, depending on events in the final quarter of the financial year.

Meanwhile, the week that was offered one flicker of hope for Wanganui. Barbara Bullock has consistently stood up for truth but has been less than honestly reported by Mickey’s pet Maslin. So let’s remember this moment, when Mas momentarily forgot Mickey’s orders and was suddenly endowed with enough lead in his pencil to quote Cr Bullock’s courageous summary of her stand on the gang patch farce :

“I’m voting against the gang insignia bill. I never approved of it from the start, but I’m quite happy to work with people in the community, with gangs or other offenders.

“But I’m not going to sit hear and listen to the crap you have just put forward that we are making a wrong decision. It is our right as councillors to make our own decisions and I’m not going to be publicly humiliated by you.

“I respect your opinion, but don’t have disrespect for mine,” Cr Bullock said. “I have a lot of support out there for voting against this gang insignia bill.”

There was, unsurprisingly, a simply fantabulous display of butt-covering and mayoral bum-licking by the Vision lackeys and more importantly the likes of Randhir (the Ego) Dahya and Rangi (the Puppet) Wills.

As Mas sadly reported: When it came to the crunch, not surpisingly Crs Higgie, Baker-Hogan, Randhir Dahya, Wills, Lindsay, Dot McKinnon and Mr Laws voted to take the gang insignia bill to Parliament with Crs Westwood, Bullock and Stevens voting against.