Letter to the Editor - Tuesday May 21, 2013

Ill-informed

It was a pity that you were unable to walk along to Te Ahu and actually listen to the submissions to council on the annual plan proposals before you launched into an ill-informed editorial (A fair shambles, May 14).

By not attending you not only missed the entertaining submission from Mijo Petricevich on the long history of council failures over the last 50 years, but you also failed to hear the discussions between the quarry industry representatives and the council over finding solutions to the issue of those contributing to rural road damage coming up with a fair financial contribution to paying for the repair work.

The quarry group had been included at the request of other heavy truck users, following last year's moves to get forestry to understand and accept that they also have an issue with winter rural road damage from winter logging trucks.

You would have heard council admit that rating on land values is a blunt instrument, but it is the government's instrument of choice for councils, and that is why council is seeking input from both the quarry and forestry industries for alternative methods, such as a charge on weight carried over distance on council rural roads, particularly given government reluctance to firstly share road user charges fairly and secondly to implement electronic RUCs.

You would have heard that industry representatives have not rushed forward to help, but now that they face an uninviting rating alternative, discussion should follow. Forestry owners have accepted the issue and are working through the numbers ,and quarries will follow. In spite of this progress you chose to publish an excruciating long-winded submission from an angry German who thinks the whole thing is a conspiracy for me to buy his farmlet cheaply. It isn't.

Your editorial suggests this is a deeply indebted council, yet if you read our published financial position at March 2013 you would see FNDC debt at $80 million out of total assets of $1.58 billion, or 5 per cent debt to assets. FNDC debt per rating unit is about $2200, or half of Whangarei's and one-third of Kaipara's. I note that at March 2013, APN, the company that Northland Age employees work for, has $479 million of debt out of a total assets of $1.35 billion, or 35 per cent debt to assets, so you should worry.

They also published an operating loss of $ 577 million, so this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black, and apologies are due to FNDC.

You decry FNDC's vision, which is to charge according to the demand caused by our ratepayers. Given that your paper receives a big chunk of its income from advertising from commercial and industrial ratepayers, who would receive a decrease under the current proposal, it is hard to understand your vision of bemoaning this saving in favour of your advertisers continuing to subsidise rural truck roading damage that they do not cause.

WAYNE BROWN

Mayor