I moved here a few years ago and was all for it, thought it would be awesome. I like art, I like art centres etc ....and then I started to find out about the local council's winning ways with money and my car hit the potholes in the main streets, and I became rabidly opposed.

Felt like I'd magically turned into some kind of a redneck but seriously, the Whangarei council is shit with money, they're far in debt (and when the cost of borrowing rises I predict tears before bedtime), they fail the locals on the basics while going after the "nice to haves", and they don't bother to do proper cost/benefit analyses.

Heaps of poor people up here not getting the basics, so giving them an eyewatering 9% rate rise this year just to do Hundertwasser things is a bit much.

Especially since they are terrible with money. Case in point, the building in question. Council bought that building over a decade ago when property prices were much higher and then refused to use it, rent it out or sell it, despite there being at one point a business begging to rent it from them. So they literally used ratepayer money to do maintenance on a big empty building for over a decade while making a loss on it. WTF, that place is a money sinkhole.

Whangarei Council also seem suspiciously corrupt, to me. I won't name names but if you talk to any older locals about some of the older "businessmen" personalities who are associated with the council and you soon get a sense of cronyism and contracts for mates etc. The saga of the referendum - telephone referendum said no, so they go for a second, paper referendum but add in an extra option to split the vote - was insanely anti-democratic.

I don't think it will be governed properly. Its supporters keep saying crazy shit like "if only 2% of Aucklanders visit each year" (in what universe is that going to happen) or "the one in Vienna gets thousands of people" (Vienna has direct international rail and air connections from many major cities and hundreds of museums and cultural attractions) or even "the Kawakawa toilet gets lots of visitors" (unlike this, it's on State Highway One, the main road north for all tourists - and is literally a toilet stop). Delusional.

I really hope I'm wrong and that it is, if not a success, at least not some kind of catastrophic failure. But I'm not holding my breath. It's a pity because I think arts and cultural funding are really important, and there are cheaper, more diverse initiatives which miss out, but the town's just being too badly mismanaged.