Generosity of Powerco: Letters, 24 August

The Bay of Plenty Times welcomes letters and comments from readers. Here you can read the letters we have published in your newspaper today.

If you spray you pay - off with their fingers

Anyone caught with a spray can loses a little finger.

I am sick and tired of driving past people's homes on the school run in Papamoa, only to see graffiti everywhere.

The people must be sick to their stomachs.

Would you spray paint a wall knowing that you could lose a finger?

No, you wouldn't.

It won't be long until we see riots here in New Zealand. The disrespect they show for the community is everywhere.

We have lost a generation, in my opinion.

Robert Clark, Papamoa

Powerco efforts

Re: "Time to plug into reality" (Editorial, August 19). Regarding the company Powerco, I thought I'd tell you a little about the generosity of people at Powerco.

Powerco have been sponsors of the Tauranga RDA Equestrian Therapy Centre for a number of years now, each year sponsoring one of our horses. They currently sponsor Powerco Betty.

This corporate horse sponsorship covers all the feed, grooming, training, veterinary care and attention that Powerco Betty needs in a year and without this sponsorship we would find it harder to be able to keep enough horses to provide the equestrian-therapy services that our Western Bay of Plenty community needs.

But Powerco does not stop at horse sponsorship. It has recently come on board with our new indoor arena project and has astonished us with its generosity. Powerco and Tennix are supporting the total rebuild of the power supply to the RDA site, free of charge! They will replace poles, upgrade the supply transformer and install a service pillar.

All this work would have cost RDA more than $20,000.

So although Powerco may not hire a generator for every business when they are working on their lines, they certainly do a phenomenal amount to support local charities such as Tauranga RDA.

Thank you, Powerco.

(Abridged.)

Kat Macmillan, Chief executive officer, Tauranga RDA Equestrian Therapy Centre

Councillor's case

A predictable response from Roger Bailey (Your View, August 22) but at least now that I am not on council I can respond.

Yes, I supported the Southern Pipeline and the Indoor Sports and Exhibition Centre and also the proposed upgrade of the Mount Hot Pools for tourism and also what is stated to be a cost benefit to ratepayers.

However I strongly opposed the $20 million Mount Greens project along with further boardwalks at the Mount, the Arataki Community Centre and I also consistently opposed the annual spending of more than $700,000 on the TECT All Terrain Park, which is situated closer to Rotorua than Tauranga.

I also strongly supported the debate on "user pays" as I believe that if there is a cost that the user does not pay for then someone else will have to pay, and that is the general ratepayer.

Following a long submission process, the ratepayers decided against supporting greater "user pays" for thing like libraries, boat ramps, parks and so on, which then result in higher-than-desired rate rises.

Some people seem to think that one vote (of 11 on council) seems to have all the say when in fact that is, of course, obviously not the case.

Mike Baker, Bethlehem

Shortfall reality

The headline "Council adds $32.5m more debt" (News, August 17) is factually incorrect and had led or misled readers to comment.

The report to council stated clearly that known or projected development contribution shortfalls will not add to the council's overall debt level as all projects were already accounted for in our treasury management.

The real issue is that some growth-related infrastructure (water, wastewater, stormwater, roads, reserves and community facilities) that may well have been expected to be paid by development contributions will now be funded by rates.

The main reasons why the shortfall has occurred are: insufficient information to charge a contribution in the early years; rapidly increased land costs; new projects emerging over time; inflation and constant legal challenges by developers slowing down the collection rate.

Tauranga City is not the only council facing these challenges. Other high-growth councils like Western Bay of Plenty, Hamilton, Queenstown and Auckland are also addressing these issues.

Tauranga City Council capped its debt several years ago and has managed to stay within that cap whilst improving its credit rating under challenging growth-related costs.

(Abridged.)

Stuart Crosby, Mayor, Tauranga City

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