RATES HIKE IMMINENT

When you pay rates is it going here?

It will take a few minutes of your time to get the 9.06% increase in YOUR rates reduced.

The proposed Tasman District Council increase in rates is more than double the 4.04% budgeted in the Council’s long term plan.

Do you want to pay the increase of 9.06% on your rates?

 

What can YOU do about it?

You need to have your say at:  shape.tasman.govt.nz/annual-plan  

Statistically, you won’t say boo, but only chatter on Facebook where your comments will disappear into thin air and won’t be noted by Council, unless you go to the correct link above.

Council admits itself, in the preamble to the long term plan, that people are less engaged in Council affairs than before and engagement is declining further.

Council relies on YOU to be engaged in their consultation processes as they make the decisions for you from the information they receive from consultation. If no one bothers to take part in the consultation process for community decisions then all Council receives are submissions from pressure groups and others who are not representative of the general population.

Council research has consistently shown that those who make a submission to the Council are not representative of the general public. This is reflected in Council’s recent resident survey results, which showed that only half of Tasman residents were happy with Council’s methods of consultation.

Council public engagement has many problems engaging with youth, migrants, specific communities in Tasman, and renters. Many people feel that decisions have already been made when they are consulted. Analysis also shows that engagement is geographically skewed in Tasman. For example, 20% of submissions to the Council on one consultation came from Golden Bay despite only making up 10% of Tasman’s population.

What are we going to do about this? It will only take a snippet of time from our busy lives to connect to the website above and comment on the rates increase. I don’t want the rates to stay at a 9.06% increase myself, too many goods and services are going up. A major increase like this will be financially crippling for pensioners, low income earners, tenants who’s rents will increase and businesses who have just gone through a crippling pandemic and the country is just about facing a depression. 

YOU have control here in this instance, but you have to go to the website and put your comments down.

Don’t Just Comment On Facebook.

Council is proposing some reductions to minimise the rates increase, but don’t rely on it happening. You must put a comment on their website asap as the consultation process closes at the end of April.

Editor

Pigeon Post News Richmond, Tasman