Stephen Berry Speaking at Rates Meeting

Affordable Auckland Mayoral candidate Stephen Berry will be participating in the Auckland Rates Increase Public Meeting on June 10. The candidate says he will be exposing Len Brown’s dirty practises during the Long Term Plan consultation process. “The Mayor already had a plan to get voters to endorse his spending and then deliberately and methodically manipulated the process to achieve this.”

Mr. Berry will also be presenting an alternative to further rates increases, saying Auckland Council needs to stay within its current budget. “Affordable Auckland pledges that we will only support rates increases which are within the level of inflation. This requires us to only spend money on core council services.”

When asked how core council services should be defined Berry say, “All we need to do is look at Section 11A of the Local Government Act 2002 to know how the Council should proceed. Anything outside of this section is none of the Council’s business.”

Section 11A of the Local Government Act 2002

Core services to be considered in performing role

• In performing its role, a local authority must have particular regard to the contribution that the following core services make to its communities:

o (a)network infrastructure:

o (b)public transport services:

o (c)solid waste collection and disposal:

o (d)the avoidance or mitigation of natural hazards:

o (e) libraries, museums, reserves, and other recreational facilities and community amenities.

“Council spending must be divided into three areas; the Must Haves mandated by the Local Government Act such as infrastructure, street lights and footpaths. Next we have the Nice to Haves such as stadiums and festivals which must be put aside until the Council is able to do its core functions without increasing rates. The final category is what I call ‘What the Hell’ such as the penis sculpture in New Lynn or the ten thousand dollars spent attaching cowbells to a traffic light in Waitemata. Those things should never be funded by the Council.”

The Auckland Rates Increase Public Meeting will be held at Mt. Eden War Memorial Hall on 487 Dominion Rd on June 10. The meeting starts at 7:30pm

Ends

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