YOUR VIEWS
Living beyond means
It is with interest I note that our council's new waste water proposal now has a price tag of $68 million.
I was at a meeting just over a year ago and the price discussed was $50 million. So up 36 per cent already or is that just some wriggle room for council?
I wish to warn ratepayers, councils are hopeless at controlling costs. Kaipara waste water scheme ended up costing six times the original budget, leaving a legacy of unaffordable liabilities to ratepayers.
Tasman council approved the Waimea dam, started at $38 million, blew out to $48 million before starting and now is priced before completion at $168 million plus.
What we need to ask our council is: a) how much is this project going to cost per residence? b) how much will other unfunded infrastructure liabilities such as replacing water pipes, roading etc cost per residence?
I am asking this because I'm afraid our council is probably already insolvent due to these unfunded liabilities. I doubt that councils are any longer the right structure to deliver services.
In the short term they need to return to core services only.
We can see the problem in our rates, increases way above the rate of inflation, yet we appear to get no more services for our money. The reality is that local body rates will all double in the next 8-10 years, inhibiting growth in our local economy. This is an economy where $25 an hour is a good wage, that's before income tax / GST / fuel taxes leaving us with very low net incomes.
I suspect council liabilities per household are above the average wage, like I say, insolvent. We built these towns in a period of rapid growth and now get to replace infrastructure in a period of no growth.
We also have an issue with our regional council, a council with no liability to replace crumbling infrastructure.
They may threaten to sue us for waste getting into rivers but this is the same council that has ignored river health for years, over-allocating irrigation consents and then treating those consents as ownership. I got a legal opinion: a consent in no way implies ownership, that's unless HBRC have entered into some kind of contract with irrigators. Have they?
Low flows compound poor river quality often due to intensive farming systems on light gravels, systems applying on average 4500-5000 tonnes of irrigated water per hectare per annum. These are farming practices consented by HBRC.
We have nitrate issues in ground water heading towards our towns. Do we really want to continue socialising these costs?
Andrew Wilson
Otane