RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume C, Issue 29630, 28 September 1961, Page 22

RANDOM REMINDER

BOOTS, BOOTS, BOOTS.

There will be general agreement with Cr. H. P. Smith, chairman of the Christchurch City Council’s finance committee, who recently described the preamble to city rate demands as bad public relations. Without having the pleasure of the acquaintance of Mr A. A. Boot, the council’s rate collector, this column is prepared to believe that Mr Boot does not really like saying “I hereby demand from you within FOURTEEN DAYS ...” and then fixing a sum which, at first glance, seems to the citizen to be a joke in rather indifferent taste. But a swift run up the six or seven itemised amounts shows that the

council means what it says, and there is nothing for it but to cheek each item with the description of the rates set out, in an attractive shade of blue, on the back of the ransom note. And this is where a second complaint arises. Some sort of allowance should be made the ratepayer who feels it is necessary to conduct an audit to make sure the council has been doing its sums properly. But without the aid of an electronic brain, it is not easy to multiply £ .00073557 by the capital value of one’s property, to see if the Transport Board is not getting too much for its special rate, without losing a few decimal places, a couple of pencils and one’s temper. The usual practice

is to start the computation neatly at the top of a sheet of paper, and abandon it three-quarters of the way down, in case the Christchurch Drainage Board’s annual recurring rate (£.0019) comes out more easily. It does: but it is then discovered that this is one of the two or three rates from the list of 28 which doe# not actually appear on the demand. It might be kinder, Mr Boot, to keep everyone in the dark: just a simple statement, such as “You owe me £ 138 175,” sent in a plain envelope, without explanation, or confusing references to how the sum was computed. It might mean a saving in printing costs, and a reduction in the rates because of it—about £.0000000001589.