Dame Elizabeth Hanan this week criticised the council's decision to dump Delta in favour of an outside company, Waste Management, as ''short-sighted''.
However, contacted yesterday, Dame Elizabeth confirmed her son, Dave Hanan, was among Delta staff facing the prospect of losing their jobs as a result.
Mr Hanan worked as an environmental engineer for Delta, overseeing the landfill and other contracts in the Clutha district and Invercargill, and ''could be'' affected by the change, she said.
Despite that, Dame Elizabeth denied the family connection influenced her view on the council's contracting decision.
''I am a ratepayer of the city and I have some knowledge of council procedures and things. In that respect, whether it's my son or not is not a relevant matter.
''It's the process that's been undertaken by the city.''
Dame Elizabeth originally wrote to the Otago Daily Times to raise her concerns about the council's contract decision.
In it, she praised Delta's work at the landfill, including that by Mr Hanan, but did not identify him as her son.
Mr Hanan declined to comment yesterday.
The latest development came after the council last week named Waste Management as its preferred contractor for the eight-year, $20.6million contract to run the Green Island landfill.
The company, owned by Chinese interests, has an established presence across New Zealand, including 36 staff in Dunedin.
The Otago Daily Times was subsequently told 12 workers from Delta, and potentially one or more of their managers, faced losing their jobs as a result of losing the contract, although Delta has so far declined to confirm details.
Waste Management South Island general manager Gareth James, in an emailed response to ODT questions, said the company would look to employ an additional 20 staff in Dunedin once it took over management of the Green Island landfill.
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Comments
How is it 'conflict of interest'? Which interests are conflicted? Dame Elizabeth is not associated with municipal functionaries. She is a former Councillor, a former Deputy Mayor. A fine thing if former public life can rule out personal opinion.
Dame E is right. The City will lose the $500,000 operating profit Delta made each year from the landfill that was returned to the ratepayers as a dividend - now that profit will head out of NZ - there appears to be no financial benefit from the change in operator and a clear loss.
Have to wonder how come a City that has successfully operated a landfill on behalf of the ratepayer for the best part of a century can't do it any more - maybe we should get a delegation from the Chinese Communist party to run the city too - they seem to be doing a better job of running China than our lot are at running NZ let alone the DCC.
You're kidding right.
She hasn't been heard from for years about anything Council has been doing, yet as soon as her son's position at Green Island is threatened there she is ranting about how Council has stuffed up, but failing to mention she has a personal interest in the matter.
That's called a conflict of interest.
Some of us weren't born yesterday.