Rates rises look to be inevitable or so everyone keeps saying to soften up the public.
We're told to expect 30 per cent next year and 40 to 50 per cent over a three-year period.
Where do ratepayers find this extra money, especially those renting, on low and fixed incomes? Around 22 per cent of the population. These are the same people the council is denying a pay as you throw rubbish option which would keep down costs.
The local body financial model is broken. Central government is imposing on local authorities an ever-increasing burden of expectation and new rules and costly regulations, Three Waters for example, without providing any cash handouts or sharing the cost. A loan does not cut it.
The central government wants and is driving the expansion of Tauranga, so pay your share and provide the funding for the infrastructure needed for this extraordinary growth.
Philip Brown Papamoa Residents & Ratepayers Association
Tolls should be dropped
Why is it that of the three toll roads in New Zealand two of them are within the greater Tauranga City area? One of them is a second class stretch of road with barely a kilometre of dual carriageway in either direction.
If we are going to have to pay to use Route K at least let us see something for our money.
In all fairness, I think one of two things should happen. Either the tolls should be dropped altogether or all similar class roads throughout the country should carry a comparable but significantly reduced toll.
