KEY POINTS:
The axe still hangs over Auckland City's mobile library after Citizens & Ratepayers councillors yesterday quashed a move to keep the service.
The ruling C&R team is considering spending cuts on services like the mobile library to hold down rates and help fund favoured projects like a $56 million package for the 2011 Rugby World Cup.
Community services chairman and C&R councillor Paul Goldsmith said the council had to rein in spending to ensure rates did not add to the pain of higher petrol, food and living costs.
Mr Goldsmith, who has supported a 180 per cent rise in costs for the Rugby World Cup and a 10 per cent rise in spending on consultants, voted with other C&R councillors to get more information on the mobile library service. This followed a move by independent councillor Denise Roche to keep the mobile library service.
It was ironic, she said, that there was a paper to the committee about caring for the elderly and people with disabilities when councillors were being asked to scrap a key service to those groups.
City Vision leader Richard Northey said it was the third attempt to scrap the mobile service. All the latest attempt would do was upset the elderly and lead to a backdown later on, he said.
Public pressure forced a backdown in 2003 when the cost-cutting council of Mayor John Banks and C&R had a go at axing the mobile library.
In a report to the committee, library group manager Allison Dobbie proposed not replacing the 12-year-old mobile library as part of cutting $13.6 million from the $145 million library budget over the next decade.
The mobile library would contribute $650,000 to the savings. The library clocks up 1000km a month visiting rest homes and pensioner villages and making street stops. It issued 21,191 books in the past financial year.
Mr Goldsmith said he had been comfortable with the officers' report but had since seen some figures that "muddy the water" on things like the cost of issuing books by the mobile library.
He asked for more information next month on the mobile library and how to reach people if it was allowed to wind down.
"In theory, it doesn't worry me if there is a more effective way of reaching that group of people, but that case hasn't been made by officers," Mr Goldsmith said.
North Shore Mayor Andrew Williams said the council's mobile library was much-loved. The new-generation "kneeling bus" lowered to the kerb to help the elderly get on and off, had a children's section and internet access.
It called at 46 locations on a fortnightly timetable and issued 32,105 items in the past financial year.
"North Shore will certainly not be doing away with this cherished community service," Mr Williams said.
"This is yet another ominous sign of what might be on the horizon with any proposed super city, where the politburo and Auckland centrists lose sight of what is valued by each community."
HOW THEY VOTED
To keep the mobile library:
* Graeme Easte (City Vision).
* Richard Northey (City Vision).
* Denise Roche (Independent).
To review the mobile library:
* Paul Goldsmith (C&R).
* Greg Moyle (C&R).
* Graeme Mulholland (C&R).
* Noelene Raffills (C&R).
