The Bay of Plenty Times welcomes letters and comments from readers. Below you can read the letters we have published in your newspaper today.
TODAY'S LETTERS
Cellphone towers should not be so close
Mike Johnston from Auckland (Your View, April 19), is incorrect when he says there is no evidence in scientific reports that cellphone towers cause any health problems.
Tel Aviv University concluded that cancer incidence in the population close to a cellphone tower in Netanya, Israel was four times higher than that in the general population.
However, other studies have failed to find a correlation between microwave radiation from cellphone towers and cancer.
The NZ Radio frequency Exposure Standard says "it is acknowledged that data regarding biological effects are incomplete".
In view of this uncertainty, one would have thought that 2degrees would have erred on the side of safety and not placed its cellphone towers within 20m of residential homes as it intends to do at the Grange Rd site.
If Johnston looks in the window of his microwave oven he will see a metal mesh screen, that is there to protect him from the microwaves. Generally I use my microwave for about three minutes when reheating my dinner.
The cellphone tower at 126 Grange Rd will irradiate me continuously if I continue to live in the home I own next door.
(Abridged)
Peter Trass, Tauranga
Property sales
On behalf of all those Tauranga home owners who read in the Bay of Plenty Times Weekend (February 19) that Mr Donovan-Grammer of QV valuations confirmed that most sales were taking place at rateable value and below, I am pleased to confirm that statement was quite inaccurate.
In the three months from November 2010 to January 2011 inclusive the real estate institute statistics show 265 sales including sections in Tauranga (excluding Mt Maunganui/Papamoa etc), 132 (49.8 per cent) were less than rateable value, 129 (48.7 per cent) were actually above rateable value, two were at rateable value and two had not had their rateable values posted as they were new homes.
It is a pity that when articles like this are written more time is not taken before off the cuff remarks are given that a lot of people will take as fact.
Ian Grindle, Ray White, Tauranga
Council pay rise
I read with disgust that Mayor Crosby and his cabal have "voted themselves a pay rise".
Did they ask the people who provide the money to run this city their permission? Do they deserve it? Can they explain why?
Dipping greedy hands in the public purse without permission is a dictatorship not democracy.
They spend public money recklessly on luxuries eg: Bay Wave, Baypark, plunge Tauranga into debt and still want a payrise.
We don't "pocket"money to spend on ourselves when we need to put that money towards paying off our own debts, we prune back where we can and cut our suit according to our cloth.
Some will say "it's not much money in the scheme of things" well let them pay, don't suck it from those who are already being sucked dry by higher prices. Paying councillors a more realistic wage is only the beginning of a "get this city out of debt situation" until we are free of debt, luxuries must go.
Make them do the job properly and provide services that are necessary, that is the purpose of city "fathers" before their cash cows dry up.
Time for changes, let's make them.
A Taylor, Tauranga
Salary info
I am very concerned about the lack of salary information available in the job descriptions our councillors received prior to before taking on the role of Councillors. It appears that councillors Guy, Christiansen and Grainger were not informed of the salary they would receive prior to accepting their positions on the council.
I am sure if they had known the salaries they were to receive then they would have declined the positions and remained in their high cash flow business and in the real estate job Cr Grainger misses so dearly.
To you and all the other councillors, if you didn't like the councillors pay prior to before taking on the role then you should not have taken on the job.
Cr Grainger and Christiansen, if you can not handle the job as it appears then I suggest you let someone else fill your roles.
Both of you, your fellow councillors, deputy mayor and mayor should be ashamed of yourselves and even more ashamed that you feel that justifying the salary increase would win you any sympathy.
It hasn't. It just proves you are all the wrong people for the job.
(Abridged)
Peter Morris, Mount Maunganui
Bussing athletes
Re: Events clash angers moteliers (News, April 12).
Mayor Crosby has tried to gloss over it as if it is nothing but it should never have happened. A simple inquiry could have revealed the problems that would arise. Tauranga has available to it the likes of Priority One, Sports BOP, Tauranga Chamber of Commerce, Tourism BOP and TCC also has a designated events co-ordinator but it seems not one of them bothered to check the numbers.
One event would struggle with accommodation that weekend, but two events is a nightmare and unworkable.
In addition, Mount Maunganui is a major New Year holiday destination and the Mount camping grounds are still full with holidaymakers at that time.
Surely one event with some planning could have been changed by a week - probably the Colgate Games put back to January 14, 2012 without too much fuss.
This type of mess is, as usual, a complete indictment of TCC and Tauranga sporting bodies more so because there seems to have been no attempt to sort the problem out and reorganise things.
To say they will bus athletes in from the Waikato or Rotorua is not the answer. It just shows Tauranga has no idea how to organise anything.
(Abridged)
R Paterson, Matapihi
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