| The Legacy of Mark Blumsky | |||||
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This pole was placed here as recently as 1988-something I can vouch to as I owned the land it is on at the time. A short biography of Hon Mark Blumksy can be read on Wiki. He
was endorsed by the previous mayor, Fran Wilde and became mayor of At this point the city lost all control over its wiring utility grid with the exception of the trolley bus wiring system and some optic fibre linking the CBD. Most of the city’s electrical potential was destroyed. Already under the Fran Wilde Administration processes were firmly in place to destroy critical elements of the grids intelligence. It is essential to understand that the new overseas owners, TransAlta of Calgary, Canada, had very different interests to those of the Wellington Community. The community has a fundamental interest in the efficient uses of the city’s potential and reducing carbon emissions. By contrast TransAlta’s interest was in promoting sales of Bulk-generated electricity and maximimising returns off its thermal fired generating plant. Now
wholesale sackings of staff occurred and security systems, developed
over 80 years were dismantled. For instance the keys and access data
entrusted to the Council by generations of The impotency of Mayor Blumksy is illustrated in these two examples. A
shonky deal was struck that enabled Saturn to string optic fibre cables
onto the utility poles of
I contacted Mayor Blumsky and suggested this would severely stress the grid and could result in its collapse in a “Wahine-scale” storm. We needed assurances this would not occur. \ (Note as an "employee", albeit under sub-contract, of Capital Power-TransAlta until late 1997 my ability to speak out more generally was very limited.) This was about 1996-7, the same time that Mayor Blumsky called a series of public meeting to discuss the predicament the council was now in – funding reserves had dried up and he was strawpolling the citizens as to which city services he would cut. It was pointed out to Mayor Blumsky at his Newtown meeting that other city’s that had retained control of their electricity companies and the flows of funds off them were expanding services. I reminded the Mayor that the city had now lost much of it Civil Defense capacity and the grid was possibly overstressed because of the Saturn deal. His CEO responded on Mayor Blumsky’s behalf and said they had made inquiries in response to my concerns and he could assure the meeting that “Mr McArthur need have no cause for concern at all – the city’s grid structure was well capable of supporting Saturn’s cables. The
1998 Electricity Reform act forced TransAlta to sell its grid in
Working steadily the team could replace one pole a day. This did not include hanging the Saturn - TelstraClear cables. Note: Telecom trenched its cable under the road beacons at the same time as Saturn were stringing their large cables overhead. A
very reliable source informed me Vector has “inherited a nightmare
system with poles incorrectly wired and overstressed by the Saturn
cabling.” It has embarked on an extensive programme to save the grid
from collapsing. Recently I mentioned to a City Councillor, Jack Rubens,
how grateful we should be that the Now
it is possible that control of the city’s wiring grid is about to
revert to overseas bankers again with Vector selling it to Babcock and
Brown. It is safe to predict that if this occurs
that A second indication of the impotency of Mayor Blumsky occurred when Saturn technicians were stringing up cables in my street. Telecom had trenched the street for a considerable distance to replace a damaged cable. I contacted all the lines companies plus Mayor Blumsky and alerted them that this was an ideal opportunity to bury all cables in this high-wind, high-scenic value area. Privately the companies told me they would not consider sharing a trench.(1) Publicly they said otherwise. Mayor
Blumsky could only wring his hands helplessly, agree that it made great
sense to trench all the cables and say he could do nothing about it
because the council agreement with utilities such as Telecom meant they
only had to give the Wellington City Council three weeks notice of their
intention to trench our roads. He had no ability anymore to coordinate
and rationalise grid services for the city. Note:
Note
(1): A senior Saturn Manager
told me that they would not share the trench with Telecom because “..
they are a nasty pack of bastards and just look for any excuse to sue
us… so we stay well clear of them.”
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