Letters to editor 16 January 2009
Favourite Places
One summer my family drove 12 hours to Golden Bay to stay with my parents for 10 days. We fell in love with the place and four weeks later returned here to live. Now, 28 years later, I have the privilege of welcoming other visitors to our bay.
Now, thanks to the skill (and endurance) of 11 very talented local fabric artists and after months of creativity inspired and encouraged by Liza Eastman, our environment here at the i SITE is enhanced even further. We now have another beautiful quilt, entitled Favourite Places to share with thousands of people. Darryl, too, played his part coming in from Collingwood on New Year's Eve to install it, ably assisted by Pauline. Now, only days later, it has already been admired and photographed by people from literally all around the world.
What a great place we live in. Happy New Year everyone.
Elizabeth Dransfield, Golden Bay i SITE
Important date for the public
Happy New Year to all. What great weather we have had in Golden Bay for our holidaymakers and visitors.
A most important date to mark on your calender is 28 January. There will be two public consultation meetings on that day to provide the public of Golden Bay with the opportunity to ask questions in regard to the proposed central business area proposal for a reticulated fire-fighting water system for the Takaka central business district. The first meeting is at 2pm giving residents the opportunity to ask questions. The second meeting is at 7pm where the formal presentation will be given. Both meetings are at the Takaka fire station and all members of the working party will be present.
Please participate and attend either meeting. It is essential that TDC receives feedback by way of submissions from the Golden Bay community.
Councillor Noel Riley
Wheelbarrow Jamboree
On Sunday 25 January, the folks of Tukurua will host a celebration and thanksgiving for two of the things we most treasure - the wheelbarrow and the beach. From 3pm till 5pm there will be a festive Wheelbarrow Jamboree at Tukurua beach to the seaward side of the motor camp, on the bit of sand that gets wet ie the area below the mean spring high water mark which belongs to us all. Prizes will be awarded for the best-decorated wheelbarrow, the fastest-laden team (junior/senior events ) and unladen sprints. Silly hats, banners and signage are all encouraged. All are welcome to come and join in. This will be a joyous, energetic and above all "respectful" occasion, so please access the beach via Onekaka or Parapara. Please do not bring your dogs. BYO afternoon tea. Cancelled if raining more than a drizzle.
Paul Winspear
Rates
Can I thank Messrs Fitzgibbon and Staite for their responses (GBW 16/1); I agree with virtually everything they are spinning.
QV is a business that makes money by revaluing property for local councils. The local council, in our case the TDC, pays QV with money it takes from us, the rate payers. QV and TDC are legally independent and yet one cannot exist without money from the other - our money.
Mr Staite explains that TDC decides how much of our money it wants to spend by preparing a budget of what it wants to do. In TDC's plan for 2007/2008 they budgeted to take $68.7 million of our money; this is called operating income.
The year-end report shows TDC's operating income to be $77.2 million, meaning they took $8.5 million more of our money than budgeted. The difference between the budgeted take and the actual take is equivalent to an extra $500 for every rate-paying household throughout Tasman.
The annual plan is indeed open to public comment and every year I ask if the TDC could tell us where (geographically) they are spending our money and when will they give delegated powers to our community board. TDC simply ignores such requests.
Bruce Collings
User-pays for the general rate?
Re Bruce Collings' letter and Murray Staite's reply (GBW 16/1), I am arguing against my short-term self-interest as a residential ratepayer, given that the increase in farm valuations relative to residential will decrease my proportion of the general rate.
Why should farms' proportion of general rates increase when there has been no increase in services? The important factor missing from the correspondence is that changes in valuations bear no relation to the distribution and use among ratepayers of the facilities covered by the general rate.
The long-term interest of the district is best served by a system in which we each pay our fair share. That is why we have targeted rates, where specific users are identifiable.
A user-pays system is also available to council for the general rate, by use of differential rating for land use. Council could set the proportions of the general rate that the different sectors - business, residential, dairy, sheep, crops - should pay. Then after valuations have been done, council could set a differential rate for each sector to generate each sector's "fair share".
Residential properties would not be treated unjustly the next time their valuations hike more than others'.
Peter Foster, Collingwood
