Auckland City Council

Auckland City Council’s Finance and Property Committee today confirmed the allocation to parks projects of $10 million worth of financial contributions from developers.

Committee chairperson Cr Kay McKelvie says the financial contributions are the result of levies on developments that put additional pressure on local and citywide facilities. Sixty per cent of levies collected in a ward are spent in that ward, with the balance going to citywide parks projects.

Today’s allocations were included in the current Annual Plan and have since been confirmed by community boards.

Significant allocations include $250,000 for the renewal of Rocket Park, the playground for special needs children in Mt Albert; $150,000 for a skatepark in the central city; $540,000 for lighting and path improvements to Myers Park; $7.2 million for buying new parks land; and $1 million for further development of the Shore Road reserve in Parnell.

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>