Mayor Cull defends rates rises record
BRIAN Miller claims (ODT letters, 24.6.17) that rates have ‘‘increased annually by approximately 200%’’ under my leadership. Not so. In the six years since I became mayor, the annual rates increases have been: 7.7% (201112), 5%,4%, 3%, 3.8%, and 3% in 201617 — a total of 26.4%. This compares well with the six years preceding my becoming mayor, when the rates rises totalled 42.9%.
And at the same time, we completely overhauled our financial management. Debt has steadily decreased for the first time in the DCC’s history, currently $30 million lower than forecast only six years back. Furthermore, the council has stopped raiding its assets to pay expenses. For instance, the Waipori fund has grown back to its inflationproofed level. The dividends the companies pay council have reduced from $23 million to $11 million a year and $7 million of that pays off the stadium that I inherited. The $40 million debt pool created to pay those higher dividends before my time has been reduced by 25%.
And the icing on the cake? Council did all this without cutting services. We have made mistakes along the way. Who doesn’t? But getting DCC back on its financial feet makes me enormously proud of the three councils — both elected members and staff — I have led.
Dave Cull Mayor of Dunedin
Media bias?
SUPPOSE for a moment, a 66yearold white male armed with a hunting rifle and several magazines, and a list of senators’ names, targets and shoots five (thankfully not fatally) at President Obama’s senators annual baseball practice; the press and TV news would have been all over it and rightfully so. One can easily imagine the words gushing out — rightwing, redneck, gun crazy, Christian extremist, Trump supporter, Republican, etc — and it would have gone on for weeks, because after all, this was a planned mass slaughter of elected officials — political assassination on a scale never ever seen before in the history of the USA. Well, just a few days ago (15.6.17) this actually happened, except the shooter was a registered Democrat and his victims were Republicans. You can be forgiven for not knowing any of this but not for realising the abject bias to the left of all the major news organisations including CNN, BBC, NBC, MSNBC, the Guardian, the New York Times, Washington Post and our own Radio NZ. Dave Crooks
St Clair
Radio commentary
AS I don’t have Sky and Prime was not replaying the LionsCrusaders game, I thought I would try the oldfashioned way and listen to a radio broadcast. I had no idea what stations would broadcast, couldn’t find listings in newspapers so I surfed the FM channels, finding one somewhere around 106.40FM. The game was five minutes in play and I wasn’t sure if I was on the correct station as the announcer was in the middle of relating the most bizarre story I have ever heard on radio, let alone during a sports commentary. He was relating a narrative about a rugby player and a businessman, neither of whom I heard by name. I was so disgusted at the ridiculous commentary I switched off and can only say if this is the normal standard of radio broadcast on our national game then long live Sky, even if I don’t have it. Carol Tippett
Waldronville
[Abridged]
To correspondent
Bill Allen: Your point about not answering questions directly has since been covered by Sue Bidrose’s subsequent reply to a letter to the editor, published last Monday, June 26.