Tough calls to be made in tough times

It has been a busy time since the elections. We have a significant number of new faces at both our council and the wider Southland councils.

For the city, there is an exciting level of energy for several things including some tough work ahead.

We are making good progress with management regarding getting a new museum built at Queens Park within three years which may be able to be done alongside the Tisbury museum storage project, which we currently have paused while we consider our options.

The new museum is clearly our priority. A final decision on both projects will be made at our November 29 council meeting.

We are passionate about completing the museum within three years and our governance project lead is councillor Nigel Skelt.

He has named the project Project 1225. This keeps everyone focused on the completion deadline: December (12) 2025 (25).

The tough times ahead for us as elected members is to ensure any rate increase does not unduly impact into the cost of living pain that many are feeling in our community through eye-watering increases to food, fuel, power and housing costs.

We will be doing our best to make the tough calls to keep next year’s rates at an appropriate level.

Like anyone in business, and the council is a business, we need to look at all options that increase our revenue and decrease our expenditure.

It is no longer acceptable to just push rates up without this analysis of options, which may include reducing services, selling properties, restricting borrowing for project work, increasing costs of services provided etc.

I continue to support alternative ways to deliver our Three Waters services by council, without reforming the sector into the water entity reform structure.

My view is that the Government should leave the delivery of Three Waters in local council hands and create a national, contestable fund from taxes, where councils that will struggle to upgrade their networks over the next 30 years can compete for funding.

It is my view that the current reform cannot deliver what they say it will and that Invercargill, which has done well in the past, will subsidise those councils that have not done so well.

We will be doing our best to make the tough calls to keep next year’s rates at an appropriate level.