Mail Box

John Neve kicks this edition off with not one but two of his finest then we’ve printed in full a letter from another concerned ratepayer.. more power to you all!

Nancy Says. # 25
 
“Council must be open and accountable” Nancy says!
I say welcome aboard Nancy. I have been trying to
tell you this for the last 6 or 7 years, with no
support from you. In fact you support the very people
who oppose open council.
 
I have Questions on Notice that have been there for
months and will probable never be answered. I have
letters from council which tell me “the matter is still
under consideration” but that I will be advised in due
course. We have had a change of mayor and CEO
since then, but still no reply. Most of our councillors
treat “open and accountable” council with contempt.
What they say and what they do are poles apart and
Nancy you are supportive.
 
Rubbery Figures

There is nothing like rubbery figures when it comes to
selling a rate rise. Mayor Mick tells us (26/6/08),
“Budget fair”, he goes on to tell us “council was
working towards a rates increase of 7%, which was
CPI plus 2% growth”.
Where do the figures come from Mick? The worst I
can find are March 2008, all groups CPI 4.2 as we
normally go to the nearest whole figure, which in
this case is 4. We should be looking at a rate rise of
6% not 7%.
Is this another one of Nancy’s euphemisms?
 
John A Neve

–0–

And finally Alan of Maryborough writes:

I have a comment on rates.
 
The rumour is that rates for the new FCRC will be 12 monthly now instead of 6 monthly as Maryborough rate payers are used to.  I can imagine the horror on ratepayers faces when they open their rates notices in August or September and are confronted with a $2,000 bill!!  I know I’m not looking forward to it.  Sure it’s great that Council saves money by only having to do one major mail out for the rates notices as opposed to 2 or even 4 if they go for quarterly rates but on the other hand, I can imagine the rates arrears will probably climb even higher as people struggle to pay such a large bill at once.  And imagine the interest the Council will be charging on those rates arrears, they will build rather rapidly as well.
 
What’s the bet that they increase rates by more than 7% as well.  Let’s hope they also don’t decrease the pensioner remission.  And lets hope they leave the 15% early bird discount in place too. 
 
Also, ex-Maryborough Council allowed ratepayers to set up direct debit systems to help pay their rates, ex-Hervey Bay doesn’t allow for this and basically tells their ratepayers to organise there own B-pay payments.  How’s that for being helpful.
 
I want it publicly announced whether the new Council is going to bring in the nasty fee that Hervey Bay charges new home owners of $80 for a change of ownership fee.  This is blatantly sneaky way of increasing rates revenue by charging ratepayers a fee for a service that Council has to do.  When you buy a property you pay Dept Natural Resources to have your name put on the title of that property, then DNR advises Council who amends the rating record by deleting the previous owners name and inserting the new owners name.  The work involved to process this entry would take less than 20 minutes.  How dare they charge the new owner $80 for that.  It’s outrageous.  Talk about double dipping the poor bugger trying to own a property.  Once you work out the figures, with a conservative estimate of maybe 4,000 property ownership changes in the whole FCRC area each year and that equates to $320,000 - with the majority of that being profit for the Council.  I do believe that ex-Maryborough, Tiaro and Woocoo Councils never charged a fee to process a change of ownership.  If Councillors agree to allow this, then they all deserve to be booted out at the next election.
 
From all I’ve heard around, Hervey Bay has done a wonderful job at a mass takeover of the other 3 Councils.  Staff morale is at an all time low, and building and town planning applications are back logging at a huge pace due to there not being systems put in place for a smooth amalgamation.  What was the rush anyway!?  Wouldn’t it have been smarter to ease new systems in that actually worked instead of untangling the colossal balls up that it is now!?
 
I’d like to see the supposedly full time Councillors actually doing full time work.  Why is Gerard O’Connell still working full time at the high school?  He must really enjoy paying lots of tax doing 2 full time jobs.
 
My two cents worth.
 
BBS writes: Thanks Alan, you’ve no doubt raised a few issues many others would like answered and we are sure in coming weeks there will be many more.. Is Cr O’Connell really two timing?  How he can possibly successfully work two “full-time” jobs, hold down memberships on other committees AND raise a young family we do not know.. all the best to him - Gerrard is a thinking not a follower.