Gore council ‘out of touch’ over proposed 21% rates rise

Saturday, 1 June 2024

The Gore District Council building with the recently completed Gore Library on the right. in the Eastern Southland township.

Gore farmer Hamish Mackay did not mince his words when he told councillors what he thought of their proposed 21.3% rates rise this week.

“Bugger off,” he said on Wednesday.

Mackay was one of more than 30 submitters who shared their frustrations about the rates hike with Gore District councillors during two Annual Plan hearing meetings this week.

The council is proposing a rates increase of 21.4%, saying the funding of local government in New Zealand was in dire need of being overhauled.

For the council to maintain its current services, its income needs to increase by $9.5 million.

The council is carrying debt of $54m and facing the prospect of expensive drinking water and wastewater upgrades.

An interior view of the new Gore library in April 2023, not long after it opened. This week, some submitters asked why the council had borrowed money to build a new library instead of fixing the old one.

But the ability of residents to pay the increase was questioned at hearings this week, with most submitters urging the council to trim its costs further.

Several suggested there had been financial mismanagement at the council, which in recent years had borrowed to build a new $6m council administration building and a new $7.7m library.

It was suggested the council’s arts and heritage projects should be stopped or restricted, and the repeated replanting of flower beds in the main street should be stopped to trim costs.

Ben Bell, 24, looks back on his first year as the mayor of Gore.

At Tuesday’s hearing, David Turnbull said elderly people were struggling to pay bills at the moment and the rates increase seemed “ludicrous”.

Sally McIntyre’s message to councillors was simple: “All unnecessary expenditure must be slashed now.”

Mark Copland and Peter Hargest said the council’s debt had continued to grow without any clear plan of how to pay it back, and the council had exposed ratepayers to “potential financial disaster”.

On Wednesday, Robin McGowan rattled off a number of council projects and expenditure he was unhappy about, including nearly $1m on a proposed bridge that was not built, the Streets Alive project, redundancies and personal grievances, and arts and heritage projects including the council’s whiskey distillery.

Some submitters questioned why plantings in the main street of Gore were continuously replaced. (File photo)

Mackay quoted NZ First MP Shane Jones when he told councillors to “wake up, sit up and listen up” at the beginning of his submission.

He said the council needed a total reset of its thinking, policy-setting and way of doing business, adding that the senior management team was “out of touch” with the reality of residents’ financial wellbeing.

In the district’s rural community, he said, it was often suggested that the council’s days were numbered.

“Changes need to be made fast because the GDC is financially heading in the wrong direction. In fact, I think you’re in the crap financially, to put it bluntly,” he said.

Last year he paid $13,900 in rates, but under the proposed hike that would increase to $15,900 in the coming year, he said.

“And what will it be in the 2025-26 year – the same again? I usually don’t swear in public, but the term ‘bugger off’ comes to mind instantly,” he said.

The council will hold its Annual Plan deliberative meeting on June 12.