Nothing will improve until our council decides to spend money on the Tilsley storm water system.
It is hopelessly inadequate. I wonder how many more one in 100-year floods we will experience while the council, in my view, ignores our plight, and those of others who worry the next rain will be another flood.
Glenys Ihaka
Rotorua
Birds eating fish
Trout are being wrongly blamed for the decline in native fish numbers.
The true culprit is an Australian bird which to my knowledge first appeared in NZ in the early 1940s.
As a child in South Canterbury I believed it was a juvenile white heron which had forgotten the way home.
Sadly there are many hundreds, perhaps thousands of them, commonly known as blue herons, stripping the breeding grounds of small fish in Otago and Canterbury.
These immigrants have foolishly been naturalised by DOC and given the same status as kiwi and tui.
Recently a pair have settled in Lake Rotoma but there will certainly be more in their favourite hunting grounds, shallow streams ideal for the production of juvenile fish, including trout.
It can only be hoped that DOC will come to its senses, as it did eventually with the spur winged plover and admit that they have made a terrible mistake.
Brian W Judkins
Lake Rotoma
Late rates penalty
For the first time in 29 years I omitted to pay my Rotorua Lakes Council quarterly payment on time.
Two weeks later a letter from the rates arrears team informed me that a 10 per cent penalty had been issued. That being $88.02.
Why not a brief email informing me of my error and giving a couple of days to pay?
For the two of us, over 70s, annual rates are almost $3600.
Joint income is borderline for any rebate so don't bother applying.
I feel the value we get from the $3600 is little.
A 10 per cent penalty for late payment is a disgrace.
However if you pay all your rates up front at beginning of year the council generously give a 2 per cent discount. Typical council greed.
Barrie Hamilton
Rotorua
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