Rate rise should be challenged
In response to Julie Fairey and other Auckland Council Local Board Chairs criticism of me for failing to support a 5 per cent rate increase for Auckland, I challenge their somewhat patronising assertion that I do not seem to understand that necessary investment in Auckland,
which I do support, has to be paid for.
At the commencement of the Long-Term Plan (LTP) process, I requested that council undertake a comprehensive and courageous view of its own balance sheet for the purpose of using it more effectively to help fund the necessary infrastructure to support the roll out of the Auckland Unitary Plan. Further, I consistently and have painstakingly pushed for more effective cross-party advocacy to Central Government to amend legislation to allow for some of the long overdue tools for Auckland like congestion charging and tourism taxes. These suggestions were rebuffed by Auckland's Mayor at the very time we should have been setting a more enabling brief around an ambitious LTP.
You must appreciate the power of the mayor in Auckland is unlike any other in New Zealand. Once elected he/she has the sole responsibility for all council committee structures, delegations, appointments of chairs and deputies and memberships. No-one wants to displease the leader and in some ways you could liken it to an old-fashioned court which the mayor of the day presides over. The LTP is the Mayoral proposal.
Over 150 plus hours of confidential workshops were held. Chairs of Local Boards, who are not responsible for the setting of rates, attended some but not all. They expressed a preference for a cost-plus approach to rate increases on the assumption that the long-suffering ratepayer would simply pick up the tab rather than dealing with the more difficult and vexatious issue of a lazy balance sheet. This unhappy situation should not go uncontested.
Councillor Christine Fletcher, Auckland
Bikes on bridge
An interim solution for bikes crossing the harbour bridge is to have a fleet of electric people movers with capacity for say 10 passengers, and towing a trailer with hooks for 10 bikes.
There could be pick up points at Pt Erin baths on the Auckland side, and Stafford Rd on the North Shore side.
To make it (partially) self funded passengers could tag on and tag off using the Hop card. This would be an inexpensive way to gauge the demand for this service. It would also be available during strong winds when cycling over the bridge would not be possible.
Alan Warren, Taupō.
Poor taste movie
America does everything supersized, including its capacity for hubris, and making a movie about the mosque massacre in Christchurch sets a new standard in poor taste. A country where 2nd Amendment rights usurp an individual's right not to be slaughtered because someone can express their hatred through a semi-automatic weapon, isn't an appropriate arbiter on gun violence.
There should be two non-negotiable caveats in order for this movie to proceed. 1) the survivors must have complete editorial control of the content, and 2) all profits to go directly to the victim's families. Hmmm. I just saw a pig fly by.
Mary Hearn, Glendowie.
Smoke and mirrors
The cycle bridge announcement achieves two things. Firstly, distracting the media from the Government's perpetual bungling of the vaccine programme. Secondly, it enables the Government to redirect nearly a billion dollars of transport spending, such as the Mill Rd upgrade, to the cycle bridge and then, in many months, dropping the bridge insanity without reinstating the cancelled projects. Awesome!
Stewart Hawkins, St Heliers.
