Tapping the ratepayers to supply water to business
CHBDC just voted to grant (or suspensory loan) $58,000 in ratepayers’ money to a private company CHB Holdings so they can continue their uptake of consents from the failed Ruataniwha Dam proposal.
The fact they put this money into a separate holding account after many ratepayers submitted against them giving $5m to the original proposal is irrelevant — it’s still ratepayers’ money and has other discretionary uses.
If farmers and business people want to progress dam building for their businesses, that’s fine — but they should pay for it themselves.
If they want a loan, they should go to a bank — our council are not bankers for private industry.
If CHBDC want to combat drought and provide more water for the good of the community, a better strategy would be to lobby regional and central government to fund dryland, regenerative and organic farming methods and give some subsidies to large, high water-use agribusiness to transition to lower stocking and more diversified farming .
Low water-use agribusinesses can share the water round more widely so what is available supports more of these types of business. Bonus — ratepayers of a cashstrapped council like ours save our money for sewage disposal, infrastructure upgrades, response to future climate crisis damage in our region, etc — projects already woefully underfunded.
With recession and Covid-19 around, we need to be prudent not speculative with ratepayers’ hardearned money.
Sharleen Baird
Waipukurau
Meeting a need
I wish that some people would take off their rose-coloured glasses and see what is going on in Hawke’s Bay.
If the do-gooders, politicians and aspiring politicians would just come down to Nourished for Nil food rescue (by the Gull Service Station, Karamu Rd, Mayfair) between 9am and 10am on Thursdays and see the hundreds of elderly lining up for over an hour to get food (in the rain, wind and cold), it is an eye-opener.
My many thanks go to the volunteers who work tirelessly to help and also to the supermarkets, Watties and all the places that provide the food for us. It is most appreciated.
Ernest Seadon
Hastings