He fears ratepayers are being badly exposed to huge cost overruns in Queenstown on the Lakeview development and the first stage of the arterial project, as well as the cost of planning for the Project Manawa civic centre complex.
"The question is, behind Project Manawa, how much money has been wasted, behind Lakeview, how much money has been wasted?
"Has any attempt been made to cut down on waste?"
Cooper, who’s also a former cabinet minister, is particularly critical two long-standing rival contractors are part of the Alliance delivering the arterial project.
"Why in God’s name would you have appointed two firms that had been in opposition to each other, over a period of decades, into a partnership apparently without any clear guarantee they would not take advantage of that?"
He calls the marriage of those two firms "close to commercial lunacy".
He’s pleased, however, to see nothing’s been allocated in the long-term plan (LTP) to finish the last two stages of the planned arterial route from Gorge Rd through to the One Mile.
"It would be totally illogical to do it anytime now, there’s not a large number of people [in Fernhill and beyond] other than those that are there now, and they’re quite well serviced with the roading that’s there."
Cooper says he’s not seen, in the LTP that’s been out for consultation, how council plans to tackle debt levels that are close to the allowable ceiling.
He believes the council’s waiting for assistance from the government "to save us from the immensity of the demand for this extraordinarily popular world tourist mecca", whether through a visitor levy or some other funding.
"It’s not possible for ratepayers or rating to finance what confronts us."
As to what he’d like to see, Cooper’s first remedy would be to cut council staff numbers, and the second would be to sell off the Lakeview site.
Concerning Lakeview, "it’s an illusion it’s going to be a big benefit to the community", he says.
Lewers: ‘We’ll get through this’
Queenstown mayor Glyn Lewers doesn’t believe ratepayers face the bleak future former mayor Warren Cooper’s painting.
Concerning the debt-to-income ratio, the limit of which is set at 280%, he says "I think we peak at 268 over the [next] 10 years, and drop down to 245, and this is all growth-driven".
"This is intergenerational debt that will be paid over the next 20 to 30, 40 years."
Concerning rates increases, in light of the latest 15.6% rise, Lewers says "we’ve made the decision to pay more in the first three to four years of this LTP".
"Yes, there is a bit of a hump through years one through four, but at the back end of the LTP we’re back under 5% with a dropping debt-to-income ratio."
However, he does agree with Cooper about needing government assistance — "I won’t say help from the government, I’d say a partnership with the government and actually changing a few legislative levers for us".
"I’ve pretty much told the government, I don’t want some short, quick sugar hit, I want long-term, sustained system changes to help us out."
Lewers disagrees with Cooper’s plea for staffing cuts, however.
"Every review we’ve done since I’ve been mayor has come back saying staff are overworked and we need more.
"We’re at 440 [full-time equivalents], the LTP is looking at increasing that over the 10 years, I think, another 40, so that’s less than 1% compounding over the next 10 years."
By contrast, he notes the resident population grew 8% over the past year.
