Blooming Heck: Hutt City Council Named Global Finalist In Mayors Challenge
The Challenge, which attracted 630 applications, is the world's biggest ideas competition for cities. It rewards bold, creative ideas that have the power to improve lives.
Council's ground-breaking GenAI Community Emergency Response Assistant (CERA) idea stood out from hundreds of entries around the globe.
As a finalist, Council will receive US$50,000 funding to create and test a CERA prototype to better deliver personalised, real-time emergency updates to residents.
CERA will help overcome two major challenges: the time it takes to verify and share updates during a crisis, and the lack of accessible, culturally relevant information for diverse communities.
The tool will learn from on-the-ground reports and speak multiple languages to deliver trusted, clear advice when it matters most.
Whether it's a flood, big sea swells, an earthquake or a land slip, the aim of the technology is to get the right message to the right person at the right time.
Mayor Campbell Barry says the recognition is a massive vote of confidence in Te Awa Kairangi ki Tai.
"This idea came straight from listening to our communities-especially people who've told us they're not getting the right information when emergencies hit.
"It's about saving lives and making sure every person, in every part of our city, can act quickly when it matters. We're backing our people to lead their own response, and we think this could be a real game changer-not just for us in Lower Hutt, but right across Aotearoa."
Lower Hutt is one of the most at-risk areas in the country when it comes to natural hazards. More than half the population live in tsunami or flood zones. The city also sits on a major fault line and is surrounded by steep hills and coastlines.
If Council's CERA tool is named a winner in the competition, it would receive a US$1 million prize to bring the concept to reality.
All funding and prizemoney in the Mayors Challenge is supplied by Bloomberg Philanthropies. There is no cost to ratepayers.
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NZ Herald
2 hours ago
- NZ Herald
According to UN data, hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza have been shot dead while seeking food
In recent weeks, it has emerged as a final sticking point in negotiations over a ceasefire, placing the Israeli- and United States-backed GHF squarely in the crosshairs of the latest talks. Hamas is demanding a return to the United Nations-co-ordinated system of aid delivery that operated in Gaza for decades. Israel charges that Hamas has corrupted that system. It wants to maintain strict controls on assistance to Gazans, using the newly created GHF as the primary mechanism for food distribution. Critics, including the UN and most of the international humanitarian aid community, say the GHF is designed to further Israeli war aims by selectively and inadequately providing assistance, and by forcing Gazans to put their lives in danger for a box of provisions. In a statement released yesterday, 21 European countries and others including New Zealand, Canada, and Australia issued a joint statement saying that 'the suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths'. It condemned 'the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food'. 'The Israeli Government's aid delivery model,' it said, 'is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity.' Like much of what happens inside Gaza, where Israel has banned international reporters except on brief tours led by the Israel Defence Forces, the origins and operations of the GHF remain obscure. Even more opaque is its funding. The foundation says it received about US$100 million in start-up money from a government it has declined to identify. In late June, the Trump Administration said it would supply US$30m to GHF operations. A major donation initially expected from the United Arab Emirates, according to internal planning documents seen by the Washington Post, has not materialised. The Government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which has been deeply involved in the aid programme, has publicly denied paying for it. But behind the foundation, which is a registered non-profit, is a web of interconnected US and Israeli individuals, and private US companies - including some that hope to eventually make money on the relief effort, according to public and private documents reviewed by the Washington Post and interviews with more than a dozen US and Israeli government officials, business representatives and others involved, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Among those positioned to profit from GHF-linked contracts are a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, whose subsidiary Orbis Operations helped set up the foundation; and Safe Reach Solutions, the primary contractor overseeing GHF operations inside Gaza, which was created late last year for that purpose. SRS is owned by a Wyoming-based trust whose beneficiary is McNally Capital. Boston Consulting Group was also engaged in the effort to stand up the GHF, on what it has said was a pro bono basis. In March, it signed a two-month contract for more than US$1m with McNally to continue assisting SRS, with later extensions in May, an arrangement first reported by the Financial Times. BCG later withdrew from the project amid controversy, and a BCG spokeswoman, Nidhi Sinha, said no payment was accepted. The GHF has continued to deliver food to hungry Gazans: since late May, according to the foundation's count, more than 80 million meals in boxes that are calibrated to feed 5.5 people for 3.5 days. Dwindling resources have limited the number of trucks available to bring food into the enclave to about 70 to 80 per day, compared with early plans for more than 300, according to people familiar with GHF operations. Construction of additional distribution sites has also been indefinitely put off because of a lack of financing, ongoing Israeli military operations, and the need to remove unexploded ordnance throughout Gaza. Money problems, and the unknown outcome of ceasefire negotiations, have also put on hold GHF plans for a more holistic - and controversial - proposal to relocate Gazans, summarised in a 19-page slide deck distributed at the US Embassy in Tel Aviv in January, several people said. In addition to the food distribution, the slides included plans for GHF construction of large-scale residential compounds inside and potentially outside Gaza where 'the population' could reside while the enclave was 'demilitarised and rebuilt'. The slide deck suggested that approach would allow the GHF to gain trust with Gazans - a currency that could be leveraged to 'facilitate President Trump's vision' for the battle-scarred enclave. Bodies of Palestinians killed in an Israeli strike on civilians waiting for aid in the western part of Rafah on July 19. Photo / Getty Images Aid 'in a non-UN way' The GHF concept was born as part of a larger effort by a group of Israeli military officials, Israeli businesspeople and foreign partners to support Israel's war effort and plan for Gaza's future. They began meeting shortly after the conflict began with Hamas' October 7, 2023, surprise attack in southern Israel, which killed about 1200 people and saw at least 250 hostages taken back to Gaza. As Israel responded to the attack, pounding Gaza with airstrikes and ground troops, it cut off the daily assistance that the 365sqkm enclave had depended on for decades. Netanyahu's Government - long distrustful of the UN, which co-ordinated deliveries of food, fuel and medical supplies - justified the blockade by claiming that Hamas controlled and profited from the aid distribution. Under pressure from the Biden Administration and humanitarian organisations that said depriving non-combatants of food was a potential war crime, Israel eventually allowed limited relief to resume. But the Israelis kept a tight hold on the spigot of assistance, generating friction between Netanyahu and the US Government, Israel's main source of weaponry and diplomatic backing. 'There was a need to get humanitarian aid into Gaza,' an Israeli familiar with the group's efforts said, but it needed to be done 'in a non-UN way'. In January 2024, the fledgling Gaza aid working group sought advice from Michael Vickers, a former Green Beret, CIA veteran and undersecretary of defence for intelligence during the Obama Administration. Vickers was on the board of Orbis Operations, a consulting company based in McLean, Virginia, that was founded by former national security, military, and intelligence specialists and which McNally purchased in 2021. Vickers told the planners, 'I'm not the guy, but I know the guy who can talk to you', according to a person familiar with the approach. The man they wanted, Vickers said, was then-Orbis vice-president Philip Reilly, a former senior CIA operations officer with extensive experience in private security operations. Reilly quickly gained the trust of the IDF and the Gaza planning group, and spent much of 2024 immersing himself in the details of the Gaza conflict. Neither Vickers nor Reilly responded to queries about their involvement in the Gaza initiative. The Biden Administration was well aware that the Israeli Government and private-sector Israelis and Americans were working with the Government on a plan to impose a new aid delivery system. While some in the Administration were supportive, most were sceptical. But they did not directly interfere in the project. 'They were all talking - they being the Israeli Government, the prime minister's office, the IDF - sort of throwing spaghetti against the wall to find some magic formula to take the responsibility off their shoulders' to care for Gaza's civilians, a former Biden official involved in Israel policy said. Ambitions and incorporations By the northern autumn, the outline of a plan was laid out in a lengthy feasibility study compiled by Silat Technologies, an Orbis subsidiary, envisioning the creation of a non-profit entity, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, 'to safely deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza'. Planning documents distributed over the next several months said that the foundation's leadership should include respected humanitarian figures such as David Beasley, former head of the World Food Programme, and Tony Blair, the former British Prime Minister who now runs an institute to advise change-making political leaders. Although the UN and major non-governmental aid organisations already operating in Gaza were described as an integral part, their proposed role was unclear. An elaborate social media presence and public relations programme would include outreach to select journalists to promote a positive image of the GHF. The foundation would hire a 'prime' contractor to organise and supervise construction of the sites and the aid operation inside Gaza. That firm would then subcontract a private security company - ideally US-based - to be the boots and guns on the ground, guarding the aid as it was transported to distribution sites and protecting the sites themselves. The private companies lined up to service the planned foundation also included BCG, where both Reilly and Vickers were senior advisers. BCG, which later said its initial services were offered pro bono, projected US$2b in initial operating costs for the GHF. On November 21, a new limited liability company, Safe Reach Solutions, was registered in Jackson, Wyoming, and placed in a trust administered by a local company, Two Ocean Trust. While no information in the registration documents indicated what the new company did, who ran it or whom it employed, the beneficiary of the trust and any money it made, according to three people familiar with the arrangement, was McNally Capital, the private equity firm that owns Orbis. SRS, with Reilly as its chief executive, would later become the primary GHF contractor. Spokespeople for Two Ocean Trust and SRS declined to comment. In a statement to the Washington Post, McNally Capital said it 'did not invest in SRS or actively manage the company', but said it has an 'economic interest' in the firm. 'Given our long-established relationship with Phil Reilly … our strong belief in the importance of humanitarian aid, and the US Government's appeal for innovative solutions,' the statement said, McNally was 'pleased to have supported the establishment of SRS as an important step toward meeting the full scope of humanitarian need in Gaza'. Founded in 2008 by Ward McNally, of the Rand McNally publishing family, the firm specialises in the acquisition of aerospace, defence, and technology companies. 'Obviously, McNally is a business. They're in the business of making money,' a person familiar with the financial aspects of the project said. But 'I think it's very ambiguous whether this ends up being profitable'. A checkpoint test run As the new year approached, progress toward the food aid programme planning was interrupted by the prospect of a Gaza ceasefire and partial hostage release. Israel had agreed to move its troops out of portions of Gaza at least temporarily - allowing citizens to return to what remained of their homes in the largely destroyed northern portion of the enclave. But Israeli officials insisted on a vehicle checkpoint - run by non-IDF security - on the Netzarim Corridor, a dividing line between northern and southern Gaza, to ensure weapons were not carried back to areas the IDF said it had earlier cleared of Hamas militants. With nine days' notice, US and Arab mediators turned to the newly created SRS to organise the checkpoint. Reilly subcontracted UG Solutions, a small security firm based in North Carolina, to staff the ground operation. Headed by former Green Beret Jameson Govoni, UG had previously worked in Ukraine and Haiti, among other hot spots, and could move quickly because it had few of the classified contracts with the US or other governments that proved to be complications for bigger security companies. The ceasefire mediators - the US and Qatar - administered payments to SRS, the prime contractor, according to people familiar with the operation. The ceasefire began on January 19, the day before Donald Trump's second-term inauguration. Although the truce lasted only until mid-March, when Israel launched another ground invasion of northern Gaza, the checkpoint was deemed a success, with no major incidents reported. The Netzarim operation came to be considered a test run for the food distribution operation, and SRS and UG were well positioned to take it over for GHF. On February 2, the foundation was registered as a humanitarian non-profit in Switzerland and Delaware. The Netanyahu Government had every reason to believe that Trump would support the initiative. He vowed to quickly end the war and proposed that the US 'take over' and 'own' Gaza, developing it as a high-end Mediterranean resort. Food distribution by the GHF, planning documents indicated, was just the first step in a larger redevelopment plan. Palestinians line up to receive a hot meal at a distribution point in the Al-Rimal neighbourhood in Gaza City on May 21. Photo / AFP A rocky launch When the ceasefire collapsed on March 18 and the IDF resumed ground operations and airstrikes, Israel again stopped all humanitarian aid from entering Gaza. As the days and weeks ticked on, thousands of tonnes of food and goods piled up in warehouses outside its borders; WFP and other humanitarian actors began to tally reports of starvation inside. By early May, Israel was under mounting international pressure to end its aid blockade, and Trump was looking for progress on his promise to end the war as he prepared for a trip to the Gulf. At a May 9 news conference in Tel Aviv, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee claimed the GHF as a Trump 'initiative'. US representatives, including Aryeh Lightstone, an official who now works with Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff and formerly served as an aide to David Friedman when he was US ambassador to Israel, courted UN and humanitarian partners to sign on to the plan. But opposition to the plan had grown. The UN and most aid partners refused, publicly denouncing the proposal as immoral and designed to further Israel's war plans against Hamas by 'militarising' assistance to more than a million civilians corralled into ever-shrinking 'safe zones' demarcated by the IDF in southern Gaza. Neither Beasley nor Blair agreed to sign on. On May 22, newly named GHF executive director Jake Wood, a US Marine veteran and co-founding board chair of Team Rubicon, a humanitarian organisation that operated in disaster zones, released a letter he had sent to COGAT, the Israeli Government co-ordinator for Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Its purpose, he wrote, was to confirm 'our understandings of agreements' - including an understanding that aid agencies would also be permitted to distribute food and medical assistance under 'existing' humanitarian mechanisms, outside the GHF programme. 'GHF acknowledges that we do not possess the technical capacity or field infrastructure to manage such distributions independently,' he wrote, suggesting that the new aid mechanism should complement, but not replace, Gaza's existing aid sector. The night before the scheduled May 26 launch, Wood unsuccessfully sought to persuade the IDF to delay the start date by at least a week amid unanswered questions about funding, the participation of other agencies and the nearby positioning of Israeli troops. Wood resigned, and the next day, UG contractors accompanied the first convoys of GHF food into Gaza. Some of the plans, he said in a statement, were not consistent with 'humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence'. David Burke, a fellow Marine veteran and former Team Rubicon colleague who had been named GHF chief operating officer, also resigned. Burke and Wood did not respond to inquiries from the Washington Post. The GHF promoted John Acree, a former official with the US Agency for International Development originally named head of the GHF operations inside Gaza, to interim executive director of the foundation. The opening of the sites brought new problems, with tens of thousands of despairing Gazans surging towards promised food. In the first week of GHF's operations, witnesses said that Israeli troops shot in the direction of Palestinians queuing outside the fenced distribution sites at least three times. UG contractors voiced concerns about the rules of engagement of nearby IDF troops and the safety of the Palestinians, according to several people familiar with the site operations. Paid Palestinian volunteers working at the GHF sites were receiving death threats from Hamas for participating in the Israeli-backed plan. Volunteers were afraid to travel back to their families at night, but the financial planners had not budgeted to provide them with housing, running water or other supplies to stay on-site, one person said. 'There were number crunchers at every stage, asking why do we have to do this stuff,' said another person familiar with the conversations between BCG financial consultants and SRS planners. Contractors purchased some provisions for the workers out of their own pockets, the person said. The limited number of trucks that passed through the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza each day to the sites after Israeli inspection meant that supplies ran out too early, leaving thousands empty-handed, angry, and disbelieving there was no more food to be had. On May 30, BCG abruptly withdrew from the project. Amid what several people familiar with the situation said was internal criticism of perceived anti-Palestinian initiatives, the company said that members of its team had undertaken 'unauthorised' efforts on post-war planning. Two senior partners, it said in a statement, had been 'exited ... from the firm' and BCG 'has not and will not be paid for any of their work.' The end game Despite ongoing problems and frequent reports of gunfire nearby, the GHF food programme achieved a rhythm of sorts after a few weeks. News releases provided a daily accounting of tens of thousands of boxes of pasta, lentils, cooking oil and other commodities it distributed. But the killing of civilians in the vicinity of GHF sites has continued. Last month, eight Palestinian volunteers were shot and killed, allegedly by Hamas, aboard a bus returning them to GHF sites after visiting their families. Early this month, this IDF said 'terrorists' had tossed grenades into a distribution site, injuring two American contractors. Then came the deaths in last Wednesday's stampede. 'We came to Gaza to help feed people, not to fight a narrative war,' GHF spokesman Chapin Fay told reporters hours after the stampede deaths, publicly accusing Hamas of causing the carnage by showing up at the site with guns. Aid organisations said it was the predicted result of Israeli militarisation of what should be a neutral endeavour. On Sunday local time, at least 79 Palestinians were killed when food-seeking crowds mobbed a UN aid convoy in the northern part of the enclave and were fired on by Israeli troops, according to Gaza health authorities and witnesses. The IDF said it was 'aware of the claim' and that details of the event were 'being examined'. Acree, the GHF interim executive director, repeated appeals to the UN and other aid organisations to co-operate with the foundation. 'The demand for food is relentless, and so is our commitment,' he said in a statement. 'We're adjusting our operations in real time to keep people safe and informed, and we stand ready to partner with other organisations to scale up and deliver more meals to the people of Gaza.' GHF contracts expire at the end of August, unless a ceasefire comes first. If and when the fighting stops, it remains unclear how much aid will be allowed into Gaza and who will distribute it. Since late June, Trump has said repeatedly that negotiations were going well and that a truce was imminent.
RNZ News
4 hours ago
- RNZ News
New Plymouth District Council credits property owners $3.1 million to fix rates bungle
New Plymouth District Council chief executive Gareth Green. Photo: Taupō District Council / Supplied New Plymouth councillors have agreed to credit residential ratepayers an average of $102 each after a gaffe in its annual plan meant property owners faced a 12.8 percent rates hike rather than the 9.9 percent advertised. At an extra-ordinary meeting on 22 July, councillors decided to try to find $3.1 million in savings to absorb the cost of the mistake. In a chamber filled with members of the New Plymouth Ratepayers Alliance wearing black T-shirts with "Respect Our Rates" emblazoned on them, council chief executive Gareth Green kicked proceedings off with a lengthy apology. "I stand before you today to introduce this paper for your decision making, but more importantly to own on behalf of this organisation an error which has let each of you, the community and ourselves down. "Standing here having to introduce this matter brings me no joy, however, as your chief executive it is my responsibility to own what is a significant failing of this organisation." The residential rates error was discovered as part of an internal review called for following an earlier GST bungle which could've cost council $20 million in lost revenue. The GST mistake - which had been characterised as a "typo" and "cut and paste" error - was corrected earlier this month. As well as ironing out the average residential rates glitch, councillors also corrected an annual plan wording error relating to industrial water use which could've cost council a further $1.4 million in lost revenue. An external Simpson Grierson review, which ran concurrently with the internal investigation, found council lacked financial reporting and modelling capability which "strongly suggests a need for training, and possibly recruitment / restructure and training". Green was not sure exactly how the rates error occurred but said it involved an incorrect assumption about the average value of residential land. "I put it into the context that there was a lot of pressure about getting rates down and being able to keep them down and that potentially could've contributed. "We were going through a restructure process which adds stress and pressure into any organisation and there were a lot of other processes going on nationally and locally at the time. "Just like in the airline sector a plane doesn't crash because one engine stops, it does when a number of things line up and we had a number of things lining up here which created this issue." Councillors had to decide whether to offer the automatic rates remission, go ahead and charge the full 12.8 percent or initiate a Rates Replacement Proposal to increase the commercial / industrial differential rate for 2025/26 which would've required a round of consultation. New Plymouth mayor Neil Holdom. Photo: RNZ / Robin Martin Mayor Neil Holdom's recommended councillors opt for the rates remission. He acknowledged councillor Amanda Clinton-Ghodes for repeatedly raising the issue of risk when council lost two senior finance leaders - one through a resignation - during the restructure period. "Today's meeting is about transparency and finding a way forward. We've published the details of the errors and the external report including a suite of recommendations developed to ensure we are legally compliant and square these issues with the community in a fully transparent manner. The motion before you does that." Deputy mayor David Bublitz said corrosion of the public trust the gaffes caused couldn't be overstated. "The first thing we have to do is restore the trust of the public and we restore the trust of the public by doing what we said we were going to do which is rate them at the right number. "We've got no choice. We then need to ... whoever is back [after the local body elections] ... needs to work hard to ensure that our council is a little bit leaner, a little bit more efficient and a little bit more innovative, so we can make that money back. We have to get it back." Councillor Murray Chong wanted to be done with it and charge the full 12.8 percent. "The real rate is 12.8 percent. That's it. We weren't being honest or we didn't realise we weren't being honest, but it wasn't 9.9 percent at all. "So what do we do? Do we give you a remission or do we face the reality and pay it this year because the reality is because if we don't pay it this year we will have to pay it next year or we make cuts and how are we going to make cuts? We already tried to make cuts." Chong didn't believe $3.1 million in savings could be found before June next year so council would end up borrowing to pay the shortfall. Outgoing councillor Anneka Carlson-Matthews admitted she didn't often agree with councillor Chong, but she wasn't comfortable with lumping more debt on the incoming council either. "To be fair I can't leave in good faith with a $3.1 million deficit for the [incoming] council on our mistake. That doesn't sit well. "All the talk about us being able to find it [the money] and we're going to cut service levels and we're going to reign [spending] in. We reigned it in. "And we heard from the CEO today that part of that reigning it in and restructure - which was great and we saved $10 million - was actually part of potentially why we're in the situation we are now." Carlson-Matthews didn't believe council could find the savings without making significant sacrifices. Councillors voted 13-2 in favour of the rates remission. Rates bills for the first of four quarterly instalments were expected to be sent out at the end of this month as normal. The amount owed showing on the bill would reflect the resolution in adopting the Annual Plan, but an "adjustment" or credit would be applied to each bill to reflect the decision made by the council on 22 July. The credit would be spread across the year.
Scoop
15 hours ago
- Scoop
TEL Off-ramp To Pāpāmoa East Opening Early
Tauranga City Council is pleased to be opening the off-ramp from the Tauranga Eastern Link (TEL) to Pāpāmoa East at the end of August, months ahead of schedule. The Council has worked with the project contractor, Minister for Transport Chris Bishop, the New Zealand Transport Agency and local MP Tom Rutherford to make this a reality. The Pāpāmoa East Interchange is key to improving network connectivity for existing residents and will also enable ongoing residential and commercial development. "The opening of the Pāpāmoa East Interchange off-ramp by the end of August, which is nine months ahead of plan, is a great outcome for our people and will help ease traffic issues," says Mayor Mahé Drysdale. Meanwhile, Councillor Steve Morris adds that the rest of the interchange will be open and ready to use in early-2026, which will have 'a significant impact on improving traffic flows and ease of accessing the TEL from Pāpāmoa East". 'Mayor Drysdale worked with Minister Bishop to facilitate the early opening and I approached Tom Rutherford to ask for his help,' Steve says, 'and between us all, we've managed to get a great result for the community." "By working together, we have achieved a good, pragmatic outcome for our community, and I thank everyone for saying yes and getting this done," says Mahé. The Council's Programme Director: Major Transport Projects, Chris Barton, says construction is progressing well, with costs also forecast to be within budget. More information is available on the Lets Talk Tauranga website: .
