Protest costs council $360,000

Press, 24 December 1985, Page 1

Protest costs council $360,000

Rebel ratepayers have so far cost the Christchurch City Council $360,000. In spite of changes to its rating system — made in response to the ratepayers’ Protest — both the Merivale recinct Society and the Sumner-Mt Pleasant Rates Action Committee have voted to continue their protest of paying only last year’s rates plus 10 per cent.

After three instalments for the 1985-86 year the 10 per cent protest has left the council coffers $359,888 short

The third instalment, for the area of the city which includes Sumner and Mt Pleasant was due last

week. Merivale residents paid — or did not pay — their third instalment a month earlier.

The City Treasurer, Mr Robert Lineham, said yesterday that council statistics showed that 488 people in Merivale and 800 in the eastern suburbs had either not paid or part-paid their third instalment.

Protesters did not account for all those people. This time last year — well before the rates increases and the subsequent protests — 248 Merivale people and 289 eastern resident; had not paid their rates in full. Mr Lineham said it seemed that the number of protesters had dropped with the last instalment.

When the second rates instalment was paid in August and September 603 people in Merivale and 1033 in the hill suburbs either did not pay or short-paid their rates.

The totals outstanding after the due date for instalment 3 were $154,084 in Merivale — $119,500 accounted for by part-paid demands — and $167,100 in the east — $107,900 in partpaid accounts.

The $227,400 from that instalment, together with the $132,488 owing by partpayers after the second instalment date, takes the protesters’ total to about $360,000. Mr Lineham said some

ratepayers had written to the council saying they would now pay up as a result of the changes to the system, introduced by the council last month.

A $l5O uniform general charge and changes in the commercial-residential and multi-use differentials were introduced. A switch to capital value as a base for rates was also passed in principle, in a bid to balance out the extremes in the system. However, spokesmen for the rebels say that while the changes are a start they are not enough to call off the protest. Mr Donald Walker, the chairman of the Sumner group, said the meeting of

ratepayers that decided to continue the protest was still not satisfied with the action taken by the council.

Eastern suburbs residents still felt they would be better off joining the Heathcote County.

Mr Walker said it was understandable that some people who had earlier withheld payments might have changed their mind if they saw the council’s actions as a response to their protest.

Mr'Kim Pettengell, the chairman of the Merivale Precinct Society, judged the 10 per cent protest a success in terms of getting a response from the council. However, he also believes

more needs to be done. The changes to the rates system took no account of the efficiency of the council, he said.

The council will not take any legal action against the tardy payers until the end of the financial year in March.

Although the $360,000 seems a small enough sum in relation to the total rates requirement of more than $3O million, it is a significant amount.

It is $30,000 more than was spent on books for the Canterbury Public Library last year and only $20,000 less than the total Employment Promotion budget for this year.