Robust debate: Letters, 9 March 2012

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

Ratepayers should come first in cost efficiencies

Thanks to John Cousins for printing the detail around local government amalgamation recently.

For robust debate the focus must be on what is strategically best and then identify the best structure to support the strategy and as we debate amalgamation we must ensure that patch protection, egos and our council salaries don't cloud our thinking.

In the Rotorua, Whakatane, Opotiki and Kawerau regions, both urban and rural residents are represented by one organisation - in Tauranga City Council and Western Bay of Plenty District Council we haven't been able to bridge that gap.

TCC/WBOPDC top the list for debt to rates levied.

For the whole of New Zealand both are in the top 10 for indebted councils.

The measure of staff productivity - operational spend divided by staff numbers - puts WBOPDC best at $435k per employee followed by Whakatane, Bay of Plenty Regional Council, with Tauranga at fourth.

The heady days of 2000 to 2008 are gone and the TCC/WBOPDC mayors, councillors and community board members, need to answer the questions.

What's best for our ratepayers and residents in this financial climate?

And are we really striving to find the most cost effective way to deliver services to them?

As a new boy to local politics, I believe it's high time we, the politicians, put the ratepayers and residents first.

Garry Webber, Councillor WBOPDC

Use it or save it?

I am a little bit confused over the reasons for water rates rises.

According to waters general manager Steve Burton we are on track to meeting the council's requirements for reducing the peak demand down to 450l per day from 750l.

As a result of this we are now facing increased charges for water.

So are we supposed to use water or save water?

Please make up your mind and let us know.

Does this mean that if we strive to meet council requirements for different projects that this will lead to increased costs being imposed back on the consumer?

Peter Wilson, Otumoetai

Higher demands

It is interesting to read that the region's six mayors have discussed informally the prospect of a single unitary super council for the entire Bay of Plenty, and that Mayor Stuart Crosby is apparently hoping that expected sweeping local government reforms could lead to this becoming a reality.

Mayor Crosby mentioned that there had been a lot of talk that councils have stepped outside their core business since the 2002 Local Government Act laid out council's responsibilities for a community's social, economic, environmental and cultural wellbeing.

I believe these responsibilities in the Act are core requirements for any council in an effective democracy, and the mayor's questioning of their relevance seems to indicate that this is another example of our leadership failing to foster democracy.

So this raises serious questions about the type of leadership, we have, both locally and nationally.

Therefore the major responsibility of our leaders, I believe, should firstly be to more effectively implement the Act's requirements in partnership with the citizens.

As citizens it is important that we demand more of our leaders and their bureaucracies, and especially so when we see examples throughout the world where leaders' self-interests are suppressing democracy and people's participation, at huge cost to citizens.

Hugh Hughes, Mount Maunganui