A withering attack on councillors in a private email was revealed as a business heavyweight and a Dunedin mayoral candidate squared off at a public hearing.
Some councillors were described as lacking talent, being weird, woke and probably receiving the best money they would ever be on.
The correspondence came to light after developer Allan Dippie had criticised mayoral candidate Andrew Simms over his pronouncements against the proposed Smooth Hill landfill.
At a council long-term plan hearing yesterday, Mr Dippie described an advertisement by Mr Simms’ Future Dunedin political team ticket as hysterical and said not building the landfill would be a disaster.
Mr Simms had engaged with people who had a vested interest in the landfill not going ahead and that outcome would have ramifications for the cost of doing business in the city, he said.
He described the ad as presenting "wild, alarmist, extremist things" and "trying to be populist with an election coming up".
"I think we should be above that sort of thing and get on with building infrastructure," he said.
"Andrew and I have been having quite a few colourful emails about this.
"I haven’t held back."
When it was time for Mr Simms to present his submission, he did not hold back, either.
He started to read out an email to him from Mr Dippie — and brother Martin Dippie and council chief executive Sandy Graham were copied in.
"Hi Andrew, I see you are standing for mayor with the best motley crew of individuals you can find," it began.
"Good on you — I know it’s not easy to find people to stand for these positions.
There was then a point of order from Cr Bill Acklin about relevance, upheld by the mayor.
"I don’t think we need to be introducing political discourse which was essentially private between you and him," Mayor Jules Radich said.
Mr Simms said the mayor had accepted Mr Dippie bringing up the chain of emails.
"Why would you object to me responding to them?"
The email chain has been obtained by the Otago Daily Times and there was much more debate between the two men.
"The scary thing is these individuals are sometimes in charge of decisions way beyond their capability," Mr Dippie went on to say.
Mr Dippie referred to Mr Simms’ career selling cars.
"To put this in car terms that you will be able to understand, what you are proposing would be as silly as your dealerships overseeing selling cars but opting out of being able to service them and having to get your competitors to do that.
"Pretty soon you would lose control of your business, have higher costs and unhappy clients and no control of your future."
Mr Simms’ response included some defence of councillors.
"I concur that the quality of people putting themselves forward for public service, at both a local and national level, has been declining for decades.
"In my view, it is unfair to criticise our candidates and the existing councillors in the manner that you have done."
He had received significant support from the wider business community, Mr Simms said.
"My position has been developed alongside logistics experts, accountants, environmental experts, commercial waste operators and two landfill operators."
Mr Dippie replied: "For goodness sake — of course the existing landfill operators don’t want a competitor."
Mr Simms said resource consent conditions were almost impossible to comply with.
Mr Dippie said revisiting matters could put the city further behind the eight ball.
"This email trail may appear harsh, but it is reality and I wish you good luck for your campaign, but please be aware if you are going to go down the track of hijacking decisions for the good of the city, it needs to be loudly called out."
