‘Disgruntled of Karori’ calls for rates revolt

Monday, 1 April 2024

Long-time Karori resident Judy Rohloff is calling for a rates revolt, saying she is not intending to pay any increases until the council puts a halt to what she calls its “vanity” projects.

Judy Rohloff is perfectly fine with being described as a disgruntled, or possibly worse, ratepayer.

In fact it’s a term the Karori pensioner uses to label herself, occasionally signing off the missives she writes to city leaders and others as “Disgruntled of Karori”, or alternatively “Community Crusader.”

Rohloff, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s last year, is a serial fist-waver. The most recent focus of her ire is the council’s spending priorities and subsequent cost blowouts.

So furious is Rohloff about what she sees as the inadequacies and wrong-headedness of our elected representatives that she’s written not just to Mayor Tory Whanau and every councillor, but to the prime minister, the minister of local government, minister of transport, MPs Tamatha Paul and Andy Foster, David Seymour, Winston Peters and the Ombudsman, outlining plans for a rates revolt and calling for an investigation into the council.

Her gripes are largely around a perceived lack of transparency, financial mismanagement and the treatment of submitters during the consultation process.

Her most recent targets include the “undemocratic way” the council forged ahead with its Karori connections cycleway project ‒which will see all but 81 of 279 car parks removed from along Karori Rd “to the detriment of a lot of local businesses”, the Reading cinema deal, the town hall seismic strengthening cost blowout, and various other “mayoral vanity projects”.

There was also the issue of the Karori Events Centre, which was handed over to the council in 2022 after it committed to completing a $1.9 million fit-out, but has since remained unfinished.

Thar she blows - the damage caused by a water main bursting in Karori on Monday.

“The council has got its priorities all wrong,” Rohloff said. “We’ve got major issues with infrastructure. It should be putting money into fixing our water woes instead of increasing our already high rates or wasting it on nice-to-haves.”

Her letter to the Ombudsman raised concerns around the council’s “abuse of power” in rejecting a group submission on the cycleway proposal and the “indecent haste” with which it had been rolled out.

“People in Karori feel very strongly about the way WCC is behaving over the Karori Connections Project…so many are of the view that the [council’s] idea of consulting is to ignore any negative feedback…then do whatever they want to do and that there’s little point in fighting it.

“The entire thing is a farce - just a tick box exercise so they can say they consulted,” Rohloff wrote, asking that the office look into the council’s decision-making processes.

Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier last year called for councils to open workshops to the public by default to reduce the perception that critical decisions were being made behind closed doors following an investigation in response to complaints that the practice was “undermining local democracy”.

Rohloff said it was galling to see leaks in the suburb go unattended while plans were being made to introduce water meters “at huge cost.” A proposed rates increase of 16.4% and a plan to introduce a new food waste collection, at significant cost. were also concerns.

Rohloff and her husband put all their food scraps into their home compost bin, “so we would never use it, and I’m sure a lot of others wouldn’t either.

“As a household that relies solely on New Zealand Super, like many other ratepayers, we just can’t afford more massive rates hikes.”

While the couple have just paid their latest rates bill, Rohloff is now digging her heels in, saying she will continue to pay each quarterly instalments at the current annual charge but will not pay any rates increases, any cost towards the installation of water meters, costs of any food recycling, sewage treatment levies or any costs of installing parking meters in Karori, “as long as the council continues to ignore the wishes of ratepayers”.

Neighbour Ursula Egan is right behind her strong-willed friend. She has also been at the no-response end of communication with the council, having written letters and attended public meetings.

“You just feel like everything you do is a waste of time, because they plough ahead anyway. To say any of it is consultation is nonsense.”

Rohloff hopes others will get on board as a way of protesting. “I may just be an annoying ratepayer to be ignored. Well, I might be ignored. But I won’t be silent,” she says.

She has received responses to her letter from three councillors.