Invercargill Mayor Nobby Clark maintains that releasing his alternative paper proposing 3.9% rates increases was not interfering with the democracy process.
Council chief executive Michael Day told media this week that Mayor Clark’s proposal would take community consultation about the required service cuts of the the equation, and emphasised the importance of ratepayers having their say - under the draft Annual Plan consultation document.
💰Council will make a final decision on rates under its Long Term Plan 2025/26 in June 2025. 🗓️
🗣️ Have your say here! 👉 https://bit.ly/423qM0w
The document went out for public consultation this week, but in an email referencing an embargoed paper (Thursday March 13) from Mayor Clark about his 3.9% rates proposal, he agreed it was important to let the council’s processes take priority.
At the last two council meetings Mayor Clark has opened with comments that he didn’t like the process involved in the draft Annual Plan - which set this year's rates, and that it made him nervous.
He warned that he’d use the media to say what he wanted to say, but held back sending out his embargoed letter outlining how he thought council should reduce costs - leaving council management out of it.
Following that February 25 meeting, Mayor Clark told whatsoninvers.nz that he felt it was important for democracy to let the draft Annual Plan document be released before he sent out his paper on the proposed 3.9% increase.
Now this week in a quick fire council meeting on March 11 to sign off the draft Annual Plan, Mayor Clark again warned councillors that if they continued with rates increases of 9.47% year on year it would eventually add up to 25-30% increases.
“I cannot support where this paper is going but I will continue to chair the meeting,” he said.
Questions were raised by Cr Ian Pottinger about whether the Mayor had already made up his mind about the rates increase, but that was defended by staff at the time.
“The Mayor has given a position but I don’t think he has indicated that he has closed his mind to any submitters,” manager of strategy and policy Rhiannon Suter said.
Manager of governance and legal Michael Morris then agreed that there was nothing the Mayor had said that indicated his mind was closed on what the community has told him.
“Politicians are allowed and expected to have positions that they can partake in… but they are required to listen to what people have to say.”
Mayor Clark proposed to slash employee and consultant/contractor costs at council to reduce the rates.
Council has already managed to reduce proposed rates down from 14% to 9.47%, and the consultation document would be brought back to council after hearing from the public in early May.
💰Council will make a final decision on rates under its Long Term Plan 2025/26 in June 2025. 🗓️
🗣️ Have your say here! 👉 https://bit.ly/423qM0w