Ed, Sadly you don’t need a crystal ball to realize, over 90% of resident’s are going to say no to a rate rise, plus there will be overwhelming support to cut back or elevate the discretionary services listed in the survey, even though the majority of people participating in the survey will be unaware of what the majority of the discretionary services individual rolls are and what they’re meant to achieve and more importantly what the long term consequences will be to the Clarence Valley residents and businesses , or what the future growth and prosperity in the Clarence Valley will be, by down scaling or elevating one or all of these discretionary services listed. Why will people say no to the rate rise and choose to cut back on services? The post code 2460 has one of the lowest household incomes in Australia. We pay an overage 33% more rates then western Sydney (that’s before the forecast rate rise). We have a large retiree population (surviving on the pension) with the a majority not even using roads. The Clarence Valley 2460 has a well over average unemployment rate. Last but not least and most importantly CVC are asking rate payers to pay for what is fundamentally a state and federal government long term billion dollar problem Realistically CVC under its own steam, without the ridiculous government grant system, has no chance (even in its wildest dreams) of funding the long term maintenance of 2068km of local roads 378km of regional roads 283 bridges this situation is unsustainable regardless of the % of rate rise council chooses to inflict on us or what service cuts they proceed with. Why didn’t the mayor Richie Williamson and the Councillors along with Mr Greensill spend as much time effort and money on protesting and hassling the state and federal government ministers to come up with a long term sustainable funding ideas and solutions to primarily fix their problem as much as they have doing the hard sell to residents and ratepayers and business preaching to us what our responsibility’s are the people your here to represent, us your constituents the people of the Clarence Valley. Gordon Smith, Grafton