CITY RATES AND LOANS.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 46, 23 February 1929, Page 8

CITY RATES AND LOANS.

As a city ratepayer, I wish to ask ionlong the ratepayers are going to allow tie City Council to pile up the rates and valuations. Just recently ratepayers have received their new valuation papers, and in maay, if not most, cases the valuations are again pushed up—here a little, there a lot. Seeing that rents and values of property generally hava decreased during the past two or three years, I think the council should make some effort to reduce tie rates instead of increasing them. No doubt there are cases in the business parts of the city where values are increasing, but this is not the case generally. Many ownsri of dwellings, including workers who havi acquired, or are acquiring, their own homes, find it quite hard enough already to pay their rates, insurance charges and maintenanc# expenses. And in spite of these facts, the ratepayers are now faced with proposals for heavy loans of one kind and another, with still further increases in the rates. It was stated in your columns some time ago that there was a strong feeling in the community in favour of a new council, and I feel sure that the ratepayers generally would support candidates who would undertake if elected to at least keep down the rates, even if they could not reduce them and a council also that would do something to rigidly watch the ever-growing tendency towards extravagant officialism. It is easy enough to be lavish with other people's money, as the council has been on numerous occasions, such as increasing the salaries of the council's highest-paid officials some time ago. A Wellington friend of mine recently informed me that whereat the rates on hii dwelling under the capital value rating system were nearly £9, they are now less than £5 under the unimproved value system of rating. The question of introducing this system in Auckland city is worth consideration by tha ratepayers. Anyhow, it is high time for tha ratepayers to take up a determined staid against any further increase in the rates. CITIZEN.