That's staggering. Just because our home values have possibly risen by some magically conjured figure.
Who was the brain who came up with that yet-to-be announced figure, when we still have to wait three years before the next GV?
That conjured figure, unfortunately for affected residents, puts no extra cash in their bank accounts to pay for the yet-to-be announced extra rate increases.
I have just checked out the last three three-yearly cycles of GV valuation against WDC and Horizons rate rises for me personally.
2007-10 GV shows 7.7 per cent decrease in value of my home. WDC rates rise 8.6 per cent, Horizons rates 57 per cent.
2010-13 GV shows 6.3 per cent decrease in value of my home. WDC rates rise 22 per cent, Horizons 24 per cent
2013-16 GV shows 11.1 per cent increase in value of my home WDC rates rise 14.9 per cent, Horizons rise 13.per cent
On no occasion did my bank account receive any fictional monies due in any way to the above GVs.
Can those in the ivory-tower corner of Guyton and St Hill, who appear to be in some Alice in Wonderland circus where the Mad Hatter is running riot, show the overburdened ratepayers that they have enough brain cells too rub together to make a whole one?
Those money trees at the bottom of our respective gardens are starting to look a little the worse for wear.
I feel a WDC rate revolt upon the Horizon, with a single entity replacing 13. (Abridged)
F. LAW
Springvale
Vote grabber
Have to admit, I very much agree with the commentator who stated on-line: "Stuff tomorrow, let's be popular today because with a bit of luck we'll be long gone when the postponed becomes inevitable" to last Tuesday's Chronicle headline "Whanganui's gang of seven hold rates rise down".
I bet an increase of 1.9 per cent sounds really good to most ratepayers, particularly in a city where a significant proportion are on fixed incomes, but it's within cooee of the rate of inflation at a time when 2 per cent is required just to cover the cost of the flood damage from 2015. False economy, more than likely, particularly when Whanganui needs to do something more to raise itself from 40 years of stagnation. After all, isn't keeping rates artificially low and apparently borrowing to do so what got Whanganui in an unenviable debt position in the first place? Go figure!
This mindless adherence to a certain rates increase percentage is totally related to garnering votes at the next election and not to the reality Whanganui faces, which is that it needs to do something different.
Much more economic development is needed -- and by that I include social development in that economics is, after all, a social science and should not be the "dismal" solely financial science that many now seem to perceive it as being.
Granted, good things are happening, though moreso from an improvement in the city's reputation and what that adds in terms of visitors, residents and business.
Local government in NZ needs to be allowed a wider and fairer means of raising revenue other than one based almost entirely on property value.
Let's recognise the headline for what it is -- a vote grabber.
MARTIN VISSER
(still in) Whanganui (for the moment)
We are not alone
The day after it became apparent Whanganui would be spared from the destructive effects of a flood, the headline on the front page of the Chronicle was "We were lucky", as if by chance the rain didn't fall as heavily as expected and that was the only reason parts of the city were not flooded.
This view suits both atheists, who say there is no God, and Deists who say there must be a God because we see evidence of intelligent design in nature but he is either disinterested in what goes on in the world or powerless to do anything about it.
Both points of view leave us with very little hope for the future. Does such a god care?
But God does care. The cross of Christ, which opens the way to reconciliation with God, tells us that He cares. There is another view, and that is that the same God who created this universe maintains it so that all creatures, vegetation, rain or drought, fruitful and barren years, health and sickness, riches and poverty, all things come to us not by chance but by God's fatherly hand.
If God created the universe, then why wouldn't he also maintain his universe? It is evident that he does, both in creation and his word which helps us understand the purpose of providence, that all creatures and all of creation are being directed by the providence of God toward the final goal of complete restoration and reconciliation with God, i.e. a new heavens and a new earth untainted by sin.
This doesn't answer all the questions. God's providence doesn't necessarily make sense of the often tragic and absurd things that happen.
Often the true causes of events are hidden to us. But the idea that they are in God's complete control is fortuitous for us, for we are not alone in a world disintegrating.
HANS VAATSTRA
Durie Hill
