Infrastructure that actually works.
Roads, footpaths, water, drainage, maintenance backlogs, and renewals need clear priorities and public visibility.
Dunedin City Councillor
Practical council work, made visible.
Updates, decisions, plain-English explainers, and a direct line into the issues that shape Dunedin's roads, pipes, services, businesses, neighbourhoods, and future.
What this site is for
A practical window into council work.
This is my personal councillor website. It is being built as a public workbench for residents who want council information without having to dig through long agendas, jargon, and scattered updates.
The aim is simple: show what is being worked on, explain decisions in plain English, collect useful feedback, and make it easier for people to raise local issues in a way that can actually be followed up.
This is not an official Dunedin City Council website. For formal council information, applications, service requests, consents, payments, and official records, use DCC's official channels.
Work areas
Priorities I want easier to follow.
Affordability and honest trade-offs.
Residents should be able to see what drives rates, what tradeoffs are being made, and what outcomes money is meant to buy.
Plain-English transparency.
Good governance means showing the evidence, the constraints, the risks, and the reasoning behind a decision.
A city that functions.
Small business, local events, trades, community groups, and practical city services all shape whether Dunedin feels workable.
How I can help
Simple routes for real-world problems.
Report a local issue
Roads, footpaths, water, rubbish, parks, safety, and other service issues that need to reach the right team.
Understand a decision
Plain-English explanations of reports, agendas, votes, annual plans, long-term plans, and formal consultation.
Share an idea
Ideas about local business, transport, community spaces, technology, events, transparency, and better systems.
How I work
Listen, check, explain, follow up.
A councillor cannot personally fix every pothole or override every process, but they can help residents find the right pathway, ask better questions, and make sure issues are not lost in the system.
Listen properly
Start with what the resident is seeing on the ground, not just what the paperwork says.
Check the facts
Separate service issues, policy choices, budget constraints, and decisions that need formal council process.
Explain the pathway
Make it clear whether an issue needs a service request, staff response, committee question, submission, or public debate.
Follow up visibly
Where possible, turn recurring questions into plain-English public updates so others can understand the same issue.
Future AI feature
Civic Desk should live here.
I am exploring an on-site Civic Desk that helps residents find the right official DCC page, understand public council information, and get a plain-English pointer without leaving this website.
Native tool planned
Not a link-away feature
Read the concept
Ask Doug directly
The useful version should search a curated DCC page index and show official links directly on doughall.nz.
Plain English
What I can and cannot do.
I can
- Listen to residents and raise issues through the right channels.
- Ask questions about council work, costs, timing, and tradeoffs.
- Explain public decisions and point people toward formal processes.
- Advocate for practical, evidence-led improvements.
I cannot
- Promise an outcome before evidence, advice, debate, and voting.
- Direct staff to ignore laws, policies, budgets, or safety requirements.
- Replace official service request, consent, compliance, or consultation processes.
- Share confidential information from closed council business.
Resident pulse
What do you think about council amalgamation?
Local government reform is being discussed across Otago. A unitary authority could change how decisions are made, how services are managed, how costs are shared, and how communities are represented.
Read the survey background