Writing was on the wall for McKerrow
Wellington City Council chief executive Barbara McKerrow should be congratulated for admitting to herself the council needs new leadership and she needs to move on when her contract ends next March.
We applaud Ms McKerrow for standing down next year. We’ve been saying this for months, and a recent poll we ran was overwhelmingly in favour of council not renewing her contract.
Her announcement follows hot on the heels of the resignation of the Chief Infrastructure Officer Siobhan Procter. What’s the saying about rats and sinking ships?
While it was definitely doubtful that councillors even wanted to give her another term, at least Ms McKerrow acknowledged she doesn’t have the right stuff to dig Wellington out of the sink-hole it’s currently in – especially when she steered the ship into a huge financial maelstrom! You just need to look at your latest rates invoice to know sumint ain’t right!
Don’t forget that Ms McKerrow was on the project planning committee for Let’s Get Wellington Moving, which was overwhelmingly rejected by residents. And the Golden Mile. And the Thorndon Quay debacle where residents feel they were ignored and the council went ahead with the roading changes and removal of carparks anyway, to the detriment of those businesses. (We are just waiting until Thorndon Quay becomes commercially deserted.) Oh, and don’t forget about the cost overruns for the white elephant in Wakefield Street that was once the city council offices and town hall.
The scuttlebutt from Wellington city councillors and council staff is that cracks really began to show after the Reading Cinema sale debacle. Ms McKerrow saw the writing on the wall and knew her time was running out.
It didn’t help that she was so desperate to sell the council-owned shares in Wellington airport that she told a meeting that if the sale didn’t go ahead, ratings agency Standard & Poors would downgrade the city. Scary enough if that was true! No evidence has yet been produced publicly that gives that statement any veracity at all.
She and her staff have also been in the headlines over transparency. There appeared a reluctance to answer the hard or tricky questions from councillors? Ms McKerrow attempted to implement the “CEO’s Protocol”, which was designed to keep councillors from taking their complaints to the Chief Ombudsman when they didn’t get any answers to their difficult questions. Nothing like nobbling the very people whom you’re meant to serve!
In her announcement to stand down, Ms McKerrow says being chief executive has been a “tremendously rewarding career” – thanks to the generous remuneration package, Cheers Ratepayers!
The onus is now on the council to make sure that it picks a good replacement with a sound understanding of what the council needs to do to reduce spending, reduce debt, reduce rates for homeowners and bring back the council to provide its core services only.
Winter of Discontent