Len's Volare Dinner partners revealed

Finally after months and an appeal to the Ombudsmen challenging Len Brown’s refusal to name his dinner guests as required by the rules of Manukau City at the time I have had a victory. The Ombudsmen have ruled that Len Brown must disclose the names of those present.

And we now know why Len Brown was prepared to die in the ditch over revealing the names.

Among those exalted people who Len Brown wanted to keep secret were Leigh Auton, his patsy Chief Executive, and his missus, and Richard Jeffrey and his missus too.

Both Leigh Auton and Richard Jeffrey have been given CCO board positions in a secret meeting this week. Richard Jeffrey is also the CEO of the TelstraClear Pacific Events Centre which is now embroiled in investigations surrounding donations of ratepayer funds to Len Brown’s election campaign.

Leigh Auton, you will remember was too busy to answer the Ombudsmen’s request to name the people at the dinner. He was too busy to name himself and his wife and he was too busy to name the others who he must have known well because they were at the very same dinner s him. His reward for his silence was a CCO Board seat.

Richard Jeffrey is also the person who got the now infamous Volare opera singer, Geoffrey Knight, his kick-start with funding. Bizarrely they are still insisting that Geoffrey Knight was “a young singing artist from the community.” His own website proves that is a lie.

Based on the Gold Coast, Geoffrey has been specialising as a Classical Singer since 2001, his career has been very diverse since he began performing professionally in 1994 after working as a stuntman for US TV shows Hercules and Xena.  During 1995 and 1996 he completed a diploma in performance art at the National Academy of Singing & Dramatic Art.

Since when has the Gold Coast been local Manukau? He is also 40 years old, hardly young, though that depends on where you are looking at it from.

Len Brown tried to keep this secret and even said he would resign if forced to reveal the names. Well now he has been forced to reveal the names, but I seriously doubt whether he will honour his word to resign.

The man who campaigned on transparency is nothing short of  a secretive, furtive ,sad little liar. The pity is that we may well have to put up with him for three years.

There is certainly something very, very wrong with the CCO board apppointments that Len Brown secretly rammed through, especially when one of the appointees is the CEO of a council funded organisation that donated ratepayer funds to Len Brown’s campaign. The fact that he was one of Len’s previously secret, diners at the infamous Volare dinner just makes matters that much worse. No wonder Len Brown tried to hide it. No wonder he tried to hide it from the other councillors making board appointments.

Just as well this blogger never gave in and appealed to the Ombudsmen. Now we can all see who Len Brown was  trying to keep secret and rightly ask even harder questions about just why he insisted on dying in the ditch to keep the secret until I forced him to reveal it by going to the Ombudsmen.

The Volare Diners Revealed at last