It is with a feeling of hopelessness that I find an expensive glossy brochure has arrived via the mail from the Whangarei District Council re "what should we do with your rates?"
It is disgusting that ratepayers' hard-earned rates have been frittered away on junkets, the use of council-owned vehicles for council employees (including clerical staff) for their private use, grandiose schemes that are unaffordable when the councillors know that their mandate is to use rates for footpaths, libraries and things to benefit ratepayers before spending thousands and thousands on trying to force us to accept a never-ending debt for the proposed Hundertwasser and statues along the river bank.
Broken bones, concussions and other injuries are suffered by us because of unsafe footpaths, some people's lives are never the same because the council inform us year after year that there is no money to fix footpaths and roads to a decent standard. Yet they persevere with grandiose schemes we cannot afford.
Surely these elected people can realise that Whangarei is a low socio-economic area? Rate increases mean hardship for many.
There is no way of bringing our councillors to justice as we saw with Kaipara and they know this and do as they wish without a thought to us and the debt which will make Whangarei bankrupt.
