The Dunedin City Council is considering selling the electricity distribution business, and council-owned Dunedin City Holdings Ltd (DCHL) favours a sale.
A council workshop organised by DCHL this week, and which featured commentary from independent consultants, did not impress Ted Daniels and Andrew Simms, who sat in the public gallery.
"It didn’t clarify anything," Mr Daniels, a Dunedin businessman, said.
"Nobody was looking out further than five to 10 years. Once it’s sold, it will be sold forever. Nothing there convinced me it was a good idea."
Mr Daniels said he was under the impression the purpose of the workshop was to convince councillors to vote for a sale.
He hoped councillors would have clarity of thought about the long-term future of the city, instead of "making a few dollars for now".
The workshop was arranged after DCHL sought an opportunity to respond to strong public feedback against selling the company.
Mr Simms said sitting in the public gallery was excruciating.
"It was like a court trial where only one side provided evidence and expert testimony.
"This is clearly a two-sided debate. But one side was granted a right of reply and the other side just had to witness it."
Mr Simms is the Mosgiel-Taieri Community Board chairman, but he made his submission about the proposal as an individual.
DCHL had gone out of its way to fly in people to provide comment, he said.
"I found some of it to be somewhat insulting to the ratepayers.
"There was almost a pretence people here didn’t know what they were talking about. But we’re the people most affected by the outcome. We’re also the people who own the asset."
If a sale of Aurora goes ahead, the proceeds will be used to set up a diversified fund to produce income for the council.
Mr Simms was bothered by a presentation from New Plymouth District Mayor Neil Holdom, who spoke of his experience with Powerco.
If the New Plymouth council had held on to its share of Powerco, it would be getting more in dividends than was being produced by a fund set up there, Mr Simms said.
Aurora critic Richard Healey could not attend the workshop, but bristled at commentary offered by Sapere Research Group economist Toby Stevenson.
Mr Healey stood by his own characterisation of Aurora’s "deferred revenue" as extra profit not yet recovered from customers.
He said reassurances uttered about consumer protection offered by the Commerce Commission were hollow, given the commission’s past failure to prevent Aurora neglecting its network.
