Letters

Special Rate variation

Ed, On the 7th of August the Clarence Valley Council sent a letter to ratepayers stating that in order to maintain local roads, they would like to either increase the Ordinary Rates and Base Charges by 8% a year for five years or reduce or eliminate 24 of what they call discretionary spends. Which include everything from Youth Services and Aged Services through to Airports and the Saleyards. They go on to ask you to fill in a survey detailing your position on this. People need to understand that an 8% compound increase over five years will increase their rates by about 47%. This will increase my home rates by $848.00 in the fifth year. There is no mention in the letter of what they intend to do at the end of the five years. As it would be hard to reverse the effects of the compound increase. I assume they will just stop applying the 8% per year which will leave us all with a massively increased rates bill. This will drive up the cost of rents as investors will have to pass the increase on. It will also make doing business in the Clarence Valley less attractive, stifling further investment. I don’t see why the CVC need to ask us to choose between a massive rate rise or the drastic cut of services when only last week Kevin Hogan (Member for Page) announced a $10M injection of funds to the CVC as well as the opportunity to secure a slice of a further $726M of Federal Government money for various initiatives to improve regional roads. Richard Miller, Woodford Island