The council's decision not to consult on its Annual Plan will surprise some. Photo / 123rf
OPINION
Last weekend, Tauranga was struck by a Christmas crime as some selfish Grinches nicked most of a golden reindeer from Bethlehem Town Centre.
What a person could want with a three-legged reindeer statue also missing an antler is beyond me.
And yet, the Grinchiest decision of the week that followed, in my view, still belonged to the Tauranga City Council.
Commissioners have accepted the advice of staff and decided to not consult the community on the council’s draft Annual Plan for 2022-23.
An annual plan lays out the work a council intends to do for the coming year, what it will cost and where it will find the money - including how much it will draw from local property owners’ weighty wallets via rates.
Reasons given in the meeting to support this decision included:
What a perceptive Long-Term Plan Amendment it must have been to have set a course completely accounting for the global economic upheaval we’re all experiencing.
Except, it didn’t. We know that because there are costs that have changed, which the council attributed primarily to inflation and interest rates rising beyond its projections. The plan was based on an inflation estimate of about 3 per cent; rather, it has exceeded 7 per cent.
The council accepts things have changed and acknowledges its own position is different to when it last consulted the community, but seems to fail to consider the same may be true of the Tauranga residents and businesses who pay most of its bills.
Perhaps, for example, a change in the overall rates rise, from the 6 per cent projected and broadly consulted on to 7.1 per cent, might have some wanting the council to rethink its priorities, given the increased financial pressures people are facing.
The draft rise works out to a median residential increase of 8.7 per cent (up about $240 on 2021-22) and 17 per cent commercial (about $1400). The council could not provide a comparative breakdown for the Long-Term Plan Amendment’s 6 per cent projection.
While the legislation allows for councils to skip consultation on Annual Plans sometimes, Tauranga’s situation does not sit well with me.
The point of local government is that it’s close to the people who pay for it to provide services and progress for all. Councils are not meant to be an invisible force, silently governing in the background of residents’ lives. There’s meant to be a two-way flow of ideas and feedback. Not consulting suggests an attitude in the organisation that residents will not have anything useful to offer.
A council governed by government appointees rather than representatives elected by the people should have even more reasons to ensure its consultation practices go above and beyond the legislative requirements.
For the council to simply decide to take more ratepayer cash without asking ratepayers about it in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis strikes me as arrogant, allowing strategic direction to run roughshod over the question of people’s ability to pay.
If it’s worth writing an Annual Plan for 2022-23, it’s worth seeing what the community thinks of it.
“We’re listening” read the advertisements featuring the four smiling commissioners that the council ran during consultation early in their term.
It was a good message.
Why stop now?