Stokes Valley News Editorial
February 2002

No Rates Rises - The Bad News

Robson Street and McManaway residents recently saw the installation of the long awaited, and long promised children's playground in the local park. The next part of the process was to see the planting of trees, shrubs and plants around the park.

Residents have now been informed that the planting will not go ahead, due to insufficient funding within the relevant Council department. While the official comment from the Hutt City Council Communications Manager, Kirk McGibbin, is that Council departments have only been asked to review where cutbacks may be made, the comments made privately by Council officers indicate that they have been asked to achieve a 1% budget cut across all operations. This, along with no budget increase within Council departments since 1994, means that all Council services will be provided at levels lower than last year.

This won't just have an impact on those wanting new facilities, but services currently supplied by the council across the board are likely to be reduced. This is a direct result of the current Council majority ticket having been elected on the promise of no rate increases.

Given that funding will be tight, I believe there should be a very real and transparent method to ensure that all suburbs within the city get the appropriate share of spending in their area. It would be extremely disappointing to find that some areas of the city continue to see services provided at current levels, while some areas are left to decline. Given the large number of projects Council should already be addressing in the Northern Ward, if we weren't to achieve our fair share of council funding, we could easily find ourselves in that position.