KEY POINTS:
Auckland City Mayor John Banks has sent letters to 5300 residents extolling his commitment to affordable progress.
The council said the individually-addressed letters, which cost $3812.16, were part of a new communications plan for the annual budget that had saved $200,000 on last year's figure.
The letters are in addition to asummary of the draft budget that was sent to all households in the weekly City Scene council newsletter.
The sample of 5300 residents, selected at random, was considered large enough to get people talking, says a council spokeswoman.
The council says it has saved $200,000 in its annual budget costs by not printing hard copies, designing the work in-house, not setting up information booths in shopping malls and cancelling radio advertising.
The new communications plan has resulted in the number of submissions being up from 44 to 134 at the same time last year.
In the letter, Mr Banks said the new council's promise was to keep overall rate increases to the level of the council's inflation, which is 5.1 per cent.
What he does not tell ratepayers is that he has broken an election promise to stop the "unethical" practice of "water price gouging" by continuing to take profits from the council-owned water company, Metrowater, to hold rates down.
The council is proposing to raise water bills by 5.1 per cent this year to take $24 million from Metrowater.
The rises in general and water rates come when household budgets are under pressure from rising petrol and grocery costs.
The council is consulting ratepayers on an immediate end to the water policy, but the public documents on the issue are difficult to understand.
They are written in bureaucratic jargon, and contain complicated tables of figures.
A parliamentary select committee inquiry last year into Auckland City's water policy led to a damning report and calls for the council to reconsider the policy.
Former Mayor Dick Hubbard and chief executive David Rankin criticised the report and ignored its findings.
The report followed an official inquiry into rates which showed that when water rates were taken into account, Auckland City had the highest rates of the big cities.
In 2006-2007, the average household in Auckland City paid $2039, more than North Shore ($1824), Manukau ($1588), Waitakere ($1405), Wellington ($1429) and Christchurch ($1254).
www.aucklandcity.govt.nz
