Christchurch mayor will give up

The last two weeks have been very busy for the Christchurch City Council.

First, there was a decision between the Council and the government about who was going to pay for major re-build projects like the sports centre, the library, the convention centre and other major projects. The government said it will pay $2.9 billion and the CCC will pay $1.9bn.

Then we learnt that the CCC had lost the right to give building consents because they had not been doing it correctly. The government will appoint an experienced person to oversee the building consents for the next year.

Then we learnt that the CEO of the CCC was told to take leave and not come to work at the moment. He has to take responsibility when anything like this goes wrong. The mayor also has to take responsibility, especially when he trusted his CEO. Now the mayor, Bob Parker, said he is tired and will not stand for mayor again in the local body elections in November. This was a shock. Two weeks ago, there were two strong candidates for mayor – Lianne Dalziel and Bob Parker. Now there is one.

Listen to June 19th 2013 to hear more about the two candidates for mayor.

Vocabulary

• give up – retire, not be mayor again
• re-build – build a new building
• building consent – Before any new house or other building can start to be built, there must be a consent from the CCC who has checked plans carefully.
• oversee – be the boss and check everything
• CEO – Chief Executive Officer
• take responsibility – take the blame
• stand for mayor – candidates ‘stand’ for elections, they want people to vote for them
• candidates – people who want to be elected to a position like an MP or a city councillor

Question

Why are building consents important?

Listen to September 8th 2012 to hear more about the need for a building consent.