Letters: Cycleway U-turn not enough to get council off hook

Cycleway on Hinemoa St. Photo / File

Tracey McLeod (Letters, April 9) notes that the RDRR has successfully forced a U-turn from council by making the CBD cycleway an election issue. Council has long been criticised for the original decision and now for the additional waste of scrapping it and restoring parking.

However the U-turn alone will not get council off the electoral hook because they continue to mismanage other conditions that have resulted in about 40 empty shops; the outsourced parking system alienating potential shoppers, galloping rates rises deterring investment, the absence of leadership over external decoration, the dangerous Te Manawa eyesore, the inconclusive responses to street thuggery, and cutting operational expenditure on CBD maintenance to help rescue the June 30 end-of-year balance sheet.

More borrowing is not an option. The current 'fake growth through debt' strategy has reached its borrowing limits, ruling out a rates holiday for CBD businesses. It's time for real cost compression by council.

Instead, multiple triangulating leaks suggest that rates for 2019-2020 will be hiked by at least 4.9 per cent, and when added to targeted rates, the overall increase for most will probably average 7-8 per cent; just like last year. This could be the death knell for more CBD businesses.

A positive response would be to offer authentic consultations to stakeholders and lift hope by launching a comprehensive CBD Business Rebuild Strategy on July 1 in the new Annual Plan for 2019-2020 explaining how the problems above will be resolved.

Reynold Macpherson
Mayoral candidate
Rotorua

Choice of the people?

Councillor Karen Hunt and John Pakes (Letters April 17) both talk about how the business case for the Rotorua Lakefront is robust and is what the public want with considerable consultation over a long period of time. I would ask both letters writers two questions:

1. just because "it is a robust business case" does not make it the choice of the people, just maybe the choice of the consultants and the councillors who are pushing the same cause.

2. Was this really widely advertised in the long term plan or just buried along a with a myriad of other things?

It's time to ask who wants this the most - the current elected members of RLC, or the general public?

I guess the next election will determine that. (Abridged)

Peter Breen
Glenholme

Three cheers

Re: Life offers a tale in its tail, Opinion April 17.

I read this article with interest, very good tale the sting is definitely in the tail. In "Give me dying with dignity or give me death" Rachel Stewart definitely hit the nail on the head there.

Three cheers for her very subtle article - but she got her point across in spades.

We all put our pets down when they lose mobility and enjoyment of life, so what makes us so different?

Technology is so great now a days that they can keep you going for years when you are bedridden and are non compus mentus to what is going on around you.

As soon as big business realises there's big money to be made in looking after old folks they were in like Flynn. It's time people started fighting back to regain their ultimate human right and that is to end life on your and your families' terms.

Gavin Muir
Rotorua

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