The above statement, which I am assuming was issued by the CCC soon after the earthquake, suggests that the damage to the new Civic building was only superficial. However, this has been contradicted by a report on National Radio yesterday (8.00am) , which suggests damage to the building might be as high as $5 million.

Mayor Bob Parker has also stated that damage was only minor and yet this doesn’t seem to stack up given that on the CCC own web site reports that “construction teams are working hard to get the building back up to full capacity and that this is expected to take a maximum of six weeks.”
http://www.ccc.govt.nz/thecouncil/newsmedia/mediareleases/2010/201009069.aspx

The CCC web also indicates that since the earthquake, almost 1000 of the1200 Council admin staff may have been at home because of extent of earthquake damage to the building.

While Mayor Parker may not wanting media scrutiny on this problem, in my opinion, ratepayers have every right to know the true extent and cost of what’s gone wrong and more importantly why. After all, the CCC Civic building is the newest and most expensive local Govt headquarters’ in the country and there was an expectation created by Mayor Parker that it was developed to comply with the highest level of earthquake code.

Clearly, given what has happened, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to suggest that someone may have misinformed Mayor Parker on the true position of the building performance in an earthquake.