"From my perspective, councillors are playing fast and loose with ratepayers' cash."
He also though it was "outrageous" that the council was using the rating surplus to fund this trial.
"They are using savings they have made in a year, as a slush fund to do other things, that should be returned by reducing council debt," he said.
"To say that this has no effect on the rates is not correct because suddenly money is diverted from debt repayment."
In response to Mr Hood's email, council financial policy adviser Ashley Humphrey informed him there would be no rating impact on properties from this decision.
"As any shortfall in revenue will be funded through the 2014/15 rating surplus," Mr Humphrey wrote.
Mr Hood, in a follow-up email, labelled the financial adviser's response "damning" and said that "a surplus due to overpaid rates is not returned to ratepayers by way of reduction in rates".
However, Mr Humphrey's statement was backed up by a council spokesperson, who said the council's treasury policy allowed rates surplus to be used for the repayment of debt and/or for councillors to decide to divert to projects.
"Which they have done in this case," the spokesperson said.
"Half of the surplus has been used to repay debt and contribute to the rural flood reserve."
However, Hastings-Havelock North Ward Councillor Simon Nixon disagreed with this, saying Mr Hood was paying for it.
"Well he is, because it is coming out of the rates surplus for rating area one," he said.
Hastings Mayor Lawrence Yule also wrote to Mr Hood, telling him that the allocation of the end-of-year financial surplus was a public council decision and a significant portion of this sum was used to repay debt.
"Sometimes parts of this sum is used to fund specific projects as opposed to them being funded from rates in the following year," the mayor said in his response.
In a follow-up interview, Mr Yule said if the council did not take the cost out of the surplus, it would be a rating cost for next year.
Mr Nixon said while the trial was "okay because it's a fixed amount", he raised concerns with the trial itself.
"There was no evidence produced that it was actually going to make any difference to the CBD," he said.
That statement was backed up by a report penned by district council parking manager Kevin Deacon and tabled at last month's council meeting.
In it, the originally proposed eight-month trial would cost around $330,000.
The four months that was decided on by council worked out at about $115,000.
Moreover, Mr Deacon reported for 2015/16 that officers forecast a deficit of $63,000 against a budgeted surplus of $22,000.
He put this down to reasons including the lack of parking-fee increase and reduced property rental.
Mr Deacon also noted that officers contacted the Nelson and Rotorua councils, which had carried out trials offering free parking 24/7, as well as a mix of paid and free parking.
"The outcomes from the Rotorua Lakes Council (RLC) indicated that while the public liked the free parking on offer, they experienced a substantial reduction in revenue, that there was only minor increase in foot traffic, [and] that there was a reduction in average parking stays," Mr Deacon said.
Also, Rotorua had advised that some people who worked in the CBD took advantage of the free parking by moving their vehicles during the day.
"They reinforced the need for public education," he said, to which the business association said it would "assist with educating their members against this practice".
Like Mr Nixon, the mayor was sympathetic to the residents of Havelock North but said "it has got to be funded somehow".
He said the district council had to be fair to Havelock North people so that they did not end up feeling they were paying twice.
While the move was introduced because a majority of councillors wanted to trial it, he did raise the issue that there were some real costs associated with it.
"If you want to permanently take parking meters out of Hastings then there is substantial loss of revenue from parking, there is a potential substantial loss of revenue from fines," he said. "That will have to be funded somewhere else."
If the move became permanent, that somewhere else would probably end up on people's rates, he said, similar to the Havelock North model.
