Letters to the editor: Tauranga ratepayers do not have bottomless pockets

A preliminary artist's impression of what the redeveloped civic centre for Tauranga could look like. Image / Supplied

I thought that our current Government was bad enough when it came to spending money, but it would appear the Tauranga City Council wants to beat it with the announced option of a civic centre rebuild costing $303 million, as reported (News, February 22).

To fund this option they are looking at selling existing ratepayer-owned assets, taking on debt and also increasing rates once again.

Last year we experienced a 21 per cent average rate rise and I understand that another increase is proposed for this year, now even potentially higher with a gold-plated civic centre upgrade being planned.

Does the council not know in these high inflationary times (the 5.9 per cent inflation increase recently announced being the highest annual rise in 31 years) that ratepayers just do not have bottomless pockets, in order to fund expensive projects and also fund projects such as the destination skatepark that has experienced a cost blowout of $1.38m, being 205 per cent over budget.

It's time to spend money on essentials, rather than nice-to-have items.

I'd have thought that our council would have been aware of this but apparently, it is not.

Mike Baker
Tauranga

Headline questioned

A Wednesday letter to the editor in defence of the media stated that in 40 years the reader has failed to spot anything in the Bay of Plenty Times that could be called "media lies".

I suggest he reads the Friday print edition of the BOP Times, which has a brief on page 3 headlined "Covid death in the Bay". It was not a Covid death and the article reports the person "died in a Bay of Plenty rest home, of an unrelated condition, while receiving palliative care".

Headlines such as this serve only to fuel more fear and paranoia amongst the elderly, and do the paper little credit.

Mike Dennehy
Pāpāmoa Beach

Editor's note: The Ministry of Health reported this death in Thursday's Covid-19 update. According to its website: "Covid-19 deaths includes all cases that died who were classified as an active case of Covid-19 at the time of death. In some of these cases, the underlying cause of death may have been unrelated to Covid-19." The Bay of Plenty Times stands by the headline.

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