More problems

I received my rates bill on Friday, only to find my ones had risen 13%, now more than $4000 per year. This follows a 15 % rise last year. What really irks me is that council had a lovely self-promoting story about themselves a month or two back, saying how they had found ways to reduce the planned rate rise, I think it was meant to be about 11%, to now 5%. The story went something along the lines of aren’t we wonderful, we have saved all our ratepayers so much money by finding ways to reduce our spending. Aren’t we amazing. Then, as if they’d never said that, put our rates up even more than what they had originally planned to. This is the part that really gets me. If they hadn’t have done that self-promoting article, I may have been none the wiser. But now I am refusing to accept anything other than the 5% rise they were touting. I phoned the council on Friday to query my bill, as obviously, with a 13% rise, there must be a mistake. I have not heard anything yet. And somehow, I think they will probably ignore me. I am not the only one out here on the Peninsula whose rates have risen quite significantly, again.

I read several articles last year, all with the same message, that if land prices had risen for everyone, then rates would stay the same. Councils need x amount to run, and this doesn’t change regardless of the value of people’s property. But no, it doesn’t work like that in our council, as we found last year. All our rates jumped up because, according to them our valuations had too. My property was one of the cheapest when I bought here 10 years ago, and with a valuation of $560,000, I expect it still is. Yet my rates are up there, to the point where they are unaffordable. How do we find that kind of money as pensioners? And even our rates rebate is miniscule, as with two of us, we are out of the threshold for the full rebate. We might get a hundred or two, but not the full amount.

One is starting to wonder just how efficient this council is and why we have to shoulder their incompetency. I wonder what expenses they cut to do the saving they were talking about that hasn’t happened anyway? When I phoned last year to query my big rise, I was told that the people dealing with people like me, were told to just ignore everyone’s concerns. Nothing was going to change. That sounds a pretty terrible response, I think. Perhaps some people’s concerns were quite legitimate, yet they chose a blanket response of we are not going to do anything. I know several people scattered around Northland who would also fall under this District Council. I am going to contact them to see if their rates have risen as much as mine have. I am getting a sneaking suspicion that Council may be targeting specific areas to have higher rises, whilst leaving other areas with a smaller rise. Ler’s hope I am incorrect in this thinking.

I await the response from Council to my request.