West Coast pensioner challenges ‘horrendous’ council rates
By local democracy reporter Lois Williams:
A Hokitika pensioner is staging a one-woman rate strike in protest at the amount she is being asked to pay to the West Coast Regional Council.
Liz Whiteside, 71, has written to all seven regional councillors and chief executive Darryl Lew, taking them to task over soaring rate bills.
Whiteside said she stopped paying her WCRC rates three years ago when they went up 30%.
“You should all be ashamed of yourselves for giving ratepayers a horrendous increase,” she wrote.
This year’s 27% average increase would make the regional rates even less affordable for superannuitants, she said.
“I’m an elderly pensioner nearing the end of my life who has worked hard despite a permanent disability and I don’t agree with throwing money away on a service I am not receiving."
Superannuitants living alone are paid about $1000 a fortnight.
Whiteside said she was already paying $125 a fortnight for Grey District rates, which had risen 18 per cent this year.
“This alone takes a big chunk out of my fortnightly superannuation. But I don’t begrudge paying this due to receiving services from the District Council such as water and sewerage."
The Regional Council, on the other hand, was not providing any services she considered useful or relevant to her property, she said.
A floodwall being built by the council along the Hokitika River, to future proof the area, was in part unnecessary, Whiteside claimed.
“I have lived in my property for 44 years and the highest I’ve seen the river in flood was the water entering the gravel pit … it’s never come over the top.”
The river would have to rise another four metres to endanger surrounding homes, Whiteside claims.
The council has referred her unpaid rates to debt collection and she was receiving letters demanding payment, Whiteside said.
But she was refusing to open the envelope.
“I’m in no doubt the amount showing is now $1194.12 … money I don’t have and can’t pay.”
She had offered to drip-feed the council $20 a fortnight, for three years, which was all she could afford, she said.
Whiteside said she would fiercely resist any attempt by the council to sell her property to recover the debt.
“I will not be forced out of my own home, ever.”
Regional Council chairperson Peter Haddock said he had rung Whiteside after hearing about her concerns.
“We don’t want to put people out of their homes - we have a hardship policy and if they can’t afford their rates, they need to get in touch with our rates team and we can work out a payment plan they can afford."
He did not expect Whiteside would see a 27% increase on her rates bill, because she was not in a special rating district where landowners were paying for flood protection work.
“I would say she’s probably going to have about a 15 percent increase, and I’ve put her in touch with the right person at the council to help her out with a payment plan she can afford."
Councillor Allan Birchfield, who raised the pensioner’s rates complaint with LDR, said many West Coast superannuitants would be in the same position.
“People are doing it bloody hard out there, and the old people especially – they can’t afford these rates, and they can’t see what they’re getting for their money.”
The council had turned into a bloated monster, with more than 80 staff, Birchfield said.
“A lot of those people would be on more than $100,000 - that’s where all the money’s going,” Birchfield said.
Haddock said the council had been forced to use contractors in recent years, but under a new chief executive they had been able to recruit staff to fill long-standing vacancies.
The regional council has had to borrow and rate to cover the multi-million dollar cost of the coast’s new Te Tai o Poutini District Plan – a job imposed on it by the Local Government Commission.
It also borrows to cover the cost of river works and flood protection schemes, but landowners in special rating districts up and down the coast repay the loans over time through additional rates.
Poll: Is it rude to talk on the phone on a bus?
Buses can be a relaxing way to get home if you have a seat and enough space. However, it can be off-putting when someone is taking a phone call next to you.
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63.9% Yes
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33.6% No
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2.5% Other - I'll share below
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Horse rider pleads for support to keep them safe on roads
A nationwide campaign to have horse-riders officially recognised as vulnerable road users has been offered supported by the West Coast’s Regional Transport committee.
The committee heard a presentation this month from equestrian safety advocate Julia McLean, who recently took a petition to Parliament on behalf of riding associations across the country.
The petition, signed by close to 9000 people, asks the government to recognise the vulnerability of horse riders in transport legislation.
“Currently we sit in the ‘other road user’ category and that gives no benefits whatsoever and most critically we are not included in education or road safety-messaging,” McLean said.
Horse-riders were continually dealing with reckless and dangerous behaviour by motorists, she told the committee.
“We get reports from our rider groups of horses being killed: there was one in Reefton, and another in Ruatoki; just two weeks ago a horse was hit and killed by a truck and the rider was taken to hospital."
Riders were also put at risk by aggressive drivers tooting their horns, winding down their windows and shouting, and passing at speed and too closely, she told the committee.
But unlike accidents involving pedestrians, cyclists and other vulnerable road users, such incidents involving horses were not captured in the statistics.
When she had asked NZTA for data, said said all it could tell her was that it had issued 13 infringements in 13 years, for failing to take care around a ridden animal or stock.
“When someone comes so close they touch your stirrup, or they hoot their horn as they go past ... it’s the abuse - it’s everywhere."
In a case down south, a truck driver refused to slow down despite hand signals and the rider fell off just in front of him, she said.
She had asked the road safety director for NZ Police to look at providing a ‘tick-box’ for horse-riders in incident reports, Ms McLean said.
“It’s a small, low-cost measure that would allow us to have some proper data, an informed understanding of what’s happening out there on the roads, and in turn some targeted road safety messaging.”
She was motivated to become a safety advocate by her own experience at the age of 25, when she fractured her skull in a near-fatal riding accident on a Kaiapoi road.
“I lost all memory of my childhood; my sense of taste and smell is gone forever. I was in a coma for week, I lost my career and it’s taken me 16 years to fully recover,” she told LDR.
Her accident had not been caused by a car: her horse had shied and thrown her when a piece of paper on the verge moved suddenly in the wind.
But the incident was a grim reminder of what could happen if a horse were startled, she said.
The UK and Australia had recently changed their road codes to give drivers explicit instructions on passing horses.
“It needs to be explicit. We can’t assume people just get it anymore. Common sense is not a thing. We actually have to tell people what we require, to pass a horse wide and slow - wide is two metres.”
A total of 37 organisations were now endorsing her campaign, including police, trucking companies, pony clubs and 10 other regional councils, McLean told the committee.
Transport Committee chairperson Peter Ewen was supportive of Ms McLeans safety campaign.
“In rural New Zealand we have a lot of narrow roads, and we do have riders on them – I would like to think that courtesy is given to those riders."
Regional council chairperson Peter Haddock said he sympathised with the cause but had reservations about riders on state highways.
“I would encourage it on low volume council roads but would struggle to support riding on highways where you’ve got traffic following closely behind.
“It’s difficult to find you suddenly have a horse in front of you and slowly pass it and go from 100kphs to 10kphs. It’s a dangerous situation."
McLean said horse riders did not want to ride on highways, and accidents were happening on 50kph local roads.
She appealed to West Coast mayors and chairs present to consider horse riders when they built shared pathways like cycle trails.
“We don’t need a hard surface, just a bit of dirt or grass at the side.”
The Transport Committee agreed to draft a letter to the national transport authorities, endorsing McLean’s safety campaign but stating its reservations about horses on highways.
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