Dunedin’s contentious Albany St cycleway is back on.<\/p>\n
The Dunedin City Council voted 8-7 this afternoon to reinstate proposed parking changes that had been voted down last month.<\/p>\n
The crucial vote that enabled the U-turn belonged to Cr Jim O’Malley, who had sat back from the vote in August after legal advice, but participated today.<\/p>\n
Cr O’Malley said at today’s council meeting he regretted comments he had made about people who had made submissions about the project.<\/p>\n
Those comments – critical of businessmen who raised issues about consultation and loss of carparks – resulted in doubt he would be able to bring an open mind to proceedings. Cr O’Malley said he had reflected on his comments and believed he could now move forward.<\/p>\n
He was worried about government funding for the project being put at risk.<\/p>\n
“<\/p>\n
I feel I can now participate,” Cr O’Malley said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cr Christine Garey brought a notice of motion for today’s meeting, seeking revocation of the August decision.<\/p>\n
She thanked her colleagues for reconsideration of the August decision.<\/p>\n
The project would improve safety for pedestrians and cyclists, she said.<\/p>\n
The design was integrated and elements could not be cherry-picked, she said.<\/p>\n
Cr Garey also said the project was important for the relationship with the university as well as improved safety for disabled people, pedestrians and cyclists.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cr Brent Weatherall said it was a “disgraceful, sour-grapes motion”, and he lashed out against the councillors who had signed the notice.<\/p>\n
“I have no respect for any of the five councillors who supported this motion.”<\/p>\n
Nothing had changed from three weeks earlier when the council had made its previous decision, he said.<\/p>\n
Cr Weatherall said Cr O’Malley was acting against legal advice. He was asked to withdraw the comment and did so.<\/p>\n
“Cr O’Malley has made this decision a circus,” Cr Weatherall said.<\/p>\n
He also suggested the council was opening itself up to litigation.<\/p>\n
Cr Bill Acklin agreed it was about sour grapes from people who lost the previous vote.<\/p>\n
It looked like a last-minute campaigning stunt, he said.<\/p>\n
Cr Lee Vandervis said there was no new factor that had to be considered for today’s meeting and the situation should be dealt with by the next council.<\/p>\n
Dunedin Mayor Jules Radich said the needs of the majority were being overlooked to suit a minority.<\/p>\n
Cr David Benson-Pope said the previous decision was a gross error.<\/p>\n
Cr Andrew Whiley was uncomfortable with the decision-making process.<\/p>\n
“Good decisions aren’t rushed like this,” he said.<\/p>\n
Deputy mayor Cherry Lucas said revisiting the decision was disappointing.<\/p>\n
“It reflects badly on us.”<\/p>\n
Revoking the previous Albany St decision.<\/p>\n
For (8): Crs Sophie Barker, David Benson-Pope, Christine Garey, Kevin Gilbert, Marie Laufiso, Jim O’Malley, Steve Walker.<\/p>\n
Against (7): Mayor Jules Radich, Crs Bill Acklin, Carmen Houlahan, Cherry Lucas, Lee Vandervis, Brent Weatherall, Andrew Whiley.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dunedin’s contentious Albany St cycleway is back on. The Dunedin City Council voted 8-7 this afternoon to reinstate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37700,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-37699","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}