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MANGAWHAI'S NO.1 NEWSPAPER  header call 
Melody sales@mangawhaifocus.co.nz 021454814
Nadia n.lewis@xtra.co.nz 021677978
Reporting: Julia news@mangawhaifocus.co.nz 0274641673
 Accounts: Richard info@mangawhaifocus.co.nz 021678358

 

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Letters to the Editor

Two faces for commissioner? 
Last week commissioner Robertson visited our home at our request to discuss the rate strike. When he left I said to my husband what a lovely man he is and he seemed to hear our concerns. He explained that the LTP was set in concrete (his words) and I asked him to do an amendment but he said it would need an act of government to do that and I asked him to get on with it. Now I learn that of course he can change the LTP (10 years) at any stage. 
We also suggested that they could raise the rebate limit to enable people like us to make a claim or give superannuitants a special discount. He said they hadn’t thought of that and I felt he was going to consider our suggestions. We asked him to make the increase no more than 10% (not 50% as is now) and we would pay the back rates straight away. John Key has told Auckland to make their increase 7% with a cap of 10%. 
Now he has been told by David Carter to enforce rates without considering our circumstances and left us feeling that he was just humouring us. They talked about 19.8% rise which is incorrect and a lot of us have gone up 50% after the increase of 100% the year before.
I now hold no hope that the commissioners are working for the ratepayers and merely there to look after government interests. I hope Mangawhai residents will think twice before electing John Key again as it seems to be a conspiracy between government and commissioners. This is such a disappointment to us.
 
Pamela Downes
Mangawhai
 
 
Facts not reported?
I might be a peace-loving Jafa bach owner, but even I take exception to the editor’s complacent remarks in the latest Mangawhai Focus. He criticises the rates strike and writes: “life is too short to be totally consumed by things we can’t change…”
An effective community newspaper should be investigating the facts and reporting them.
It is not in dispute that the EcoCare debt is about $58 million and that the Long Term Plan “allocates” all of that, and the interest that is accruing, to less than 2,000 Mangawhai ratepayers. This year’s rate bill includes an amount of $1,230 for EcoCare, about half of which is interest on that debt.
But you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to do the sums, and calculate that even if every Mangawhai ratepayer did pay their rates, that income would cover less than half the interest that is due. And the loan itself remains untouched. It is growing because unpaid interest is added.
It is also not in dispute that residents were consulted about $35.6 million for a smaller EcoCare scheme, but they were not consulted about council’s decision to double the size of EcoCare, and the consequent loan and debt increase.
New Zealand prides itself in the rule of law. There are strong grounds for believing that several council decisions were not taken in accordance with the law. Until independent scrutiny and due process, it is entirely rational for thinking people, and those who cannot afford drastic rate increases, to refuse to pay their rates.
Injustices won’t be fixed and things don’t change when people stay silent – and their newspapers fail to report facts.
 
Dr Joel Cayford
Mangawhai Heads
 
 
Community ripped off for years
The Government’s appointed commissioner John Robertson has taken front page prominence in the Focus to chastise ratepayers who are holding back their rates. I do not know of a single person or family who is happy not to be paying rates. Everyone, without exception, would far prefer to have a trustworthy competent council that collected sensible amounts of money in order to deliver an agreed and necessary package of services to the community.
What we actually have is a gang that takes the money collected and sprays it all over the place – to banks to repay illegally raised loans, to former chief executives to keep their mouths shut about past irregularities, to commissioners who were not chosen by the people of the district, who don’t live in it, and who could not care whether it lives or dies, as long as they get their daily fees from us, and to corporations who have systematically ripped this community off for countless millions and millions over 20 or more years, and are still at it, hammer and tongs.
We recently asked these same commissioners if the roles were reversed and they were in our position, would they see it differently from us? Their answer, to their credit, I have to say, was “No”.
We don’t think those who are paying rates to this council should be doing so, because it is only making all the problems worse. The longer this circus goes on the more catastrophic the final collapse will be.
Before July this year some of the rates being charged were probably lawful, and therefore payable. We know, because the council said so, that many of them were not (EcoCare rates, forestry levies for example.) But since July 1, not one of the rates demands is lawful, and nobody should be paying them. I have asked people if they would continue to pay into a Ponzi scheme after they had been told it was a Ponzi scheme, just because the plausible Bernie Madoff-type person in charge of it said that it would fall over if they stopped contributing. They look at me as though I was bonkers. “Of course I wouldn’t, are you out of your mind?” 
Well, I say if you are paying rates to KDC you are funding a dying Ponzi scheme, nothing is more certain in the wide wide world.  
 
Bruce Rogan
Mangawhai
 
 
Fund not so well endowed?
I correspond again re the Mangawhai Endowment Fund as it is a cornerstone of the Mangawhai Community.
This community fund traces its beginings to 1862 when harbour fees were charged for ships accessing Mangawhai Harbour.
In 2004 this fund had cash and assetts of approximately $5 million, generating interest from which grants were made for Mangawhai community projects.
I am informed that the fund has no cash and no assets as the Kaipara District council has borrowed the money and provided promissary notes to the fund.
So now we have an insolvent council owing the Mangawhai Endowment Fund $5 million and no report of this in the Kaipara District Council’s Annual Report.
Would the commissioners managing the Kaipara District Council please advise as to what action they propose to take to repay this debt?
 
G Mackenzie
Mangawhai
 
 
Concerns insufficiently addressed
Noel (Paget) makes some good points on the effect that ongoing criticism of the EcoCare and rates situations is having on restricting growth of the rating base, and property values.
It is unfortunate that legitimate concerns have been insufficiently addressed, and anger and frustrations have grown.
I wonder what would happen if government or commissioners promptly guaranteed to:
1. Initiate a wider Commission of Enquiry to forensically examine all aspects of the last three terms of Kaipara District Council, its conduct of contracts, loans, and rates, examining councillors, executives, staff, consultants, contractors, and auditors, and undertaking to vigorously pursue determination of legal liabilities and recoveries even where government departments may be found liable, and to seek recovery of perhaps up to $30 million.
2. An immediate cap on the maximum rates increases – 10% or 25% pa?
3. Produce a realistic “Rates Remission and Postponement Policy” where there is hardship.
4. Seek government assistance to consolidate council's secured debts to lower interest loans, that do not require council to guarantee the debts of other councils via the Local Government Funding Agency.
5. Rationalise council’s overheads and services to balance budgets within the income limits set by the above.
 
Ron Manderson

Chairman, 
KCRA
 
Join the rates strike
Noel’s “crystal clear” facts (letter Mangawhai Focus Nov 8) fail to address the issue in Kaipara council. He appears to be motivated by his desire to sell his property at its previously inflated value and move out of the district.
The issue at Mangawhai is not about whether the town needed or got a wastewater system. The issue is with the financial mismanagement surrounding the wastewater system’s procurement, and the deficiencies in the system as installed.
In 2006 the KDC changed the then planned system with no public notification or consultation whatsoever – it was done in an extremely secretive manner, with decisions made to expand the system from the original plan, which then ballooned the cost sky high. It took until 2010 for the KDC to come clean with the true cost, and even then it was buried in the Long Term Plan.
The end result, at this stage, is that we have the connection of only around 1,200 houses, well short of the non-consulted variation to 4,500 properties, yet we are expected to roll over and reward the “council clowns” by paying the increased rates.
The lump sum “equal payments” Noel suggests would only encourage them to “party on”.
The secrecy of the decisions made, the unknown reasoning behind them and their consequences are at the core of the issue. It is at best negligent, at worst corrupt.
Stand up, join the rate strike and make the administrators accountable. 
Einstein said: “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
 
David Walters
Mangawhai
 
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