Letters to the editor: Forget the new plaza, get on the museum

Rotorua Museum. Photo / Andrew Warner

Re: museum cost may hit $83m (News, June 25) - in my view, this council is all about procrastination.
It's been six years since the museum closed. That's six years of talking about it, six years of rising costs.
Just get started on what you have now said can be done and ensure that this generation actually gets to view this icon.
Forget the new plaza, courthouse, pedestrian precincts and cycleway.
Just focus on one major project that we actually get some revenue from.

Viv Radley
Rotorua

Council should not contemplate more grandiose ideas

I'm gobsmacked by the ideas to revitalise the CBD by, among other things, moving the courthouse as part of a "dynamic and vibrant city plaza" (News, June 21).
We've seen the council's inner-city revitalisation before. An epic fail. And the epic-fail cycleway too. Why try again? Loss of parking helped kill the CBD, so why remove more?
The vibrancy that Te Manawa was supposed to bring was another failure. Nor do we need another statue debacle.
The final straw in the death of the CBD has been the undeniable lack of safety now felt by many brave enough to go to town. This is attributed to the burgeoning homeless population for which, in my view, the council and the Government are responsible.
We can't have both a safe, vibrant CBD and be welcoming hundreds of homeless people.
The two don't mix.
Finally, the council should absolutely not contemplate more grandiose ideas.
It's got us into enough debt, with the big-ticket items still uncompleted.

Paddi Hodgkiss
Rotorua

GST adds far too much

I am very disappointed with the Government for not removing the GST from vegetables and other essential foods.
GST adds far too much to the cost of living - the most annoying is the GST added to the price of petrol after the tax has been applied, thus making us pay tax on tax.
It is time for the Government to re-appraise the administration of GST - if it wishes to make the cost of living affordable.

Jim Adams
Rotorua

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