5 Apr 2013

Jobs to go as council votes to contract work out

10:27 am on 5 April 2013

The Wellington City Council is to contract out street cleaning and weeding work and cut jobs.

On the casting vote of Mayor Celia Wade-Brown, the council voted to cut its CitiOperations staff from 35 to about 15 on Thursday.

The council's chief assets officer, Anthony Wilson, told councillors it would be costly both financially and to the council's reputation if it didn't go ahead with contracting the work.

Councillor Paul Eagle voted against the move, saying it would mean an end to the council's CitiOperations Group.

"Well this is it, CitiOps is dead and you've got 30 employees who walked away from here really upset, they've got no jobs, the jobs with contractors aren't confirmed, so who knows."

Mr Eagle says he is miffed that Ms Wade-Brown was fine with outsourcing, despite recently supporting an anti-asset sales campaign.