Rates to rise 8.7%

Environment Canterbury (ECan) councillors have approved an 8.7 per cent rates rise after a failed bid to delay the rate-setting process until the regional council's future is known.

Former National deputy prime minister Wyatt Creech has recommended to Environment Minister Nick Smith and Local Government Minister Rodney Hide that ECan councillors be replaced by commissioners, after complaints by the region's 10 mayors.

At yesterday's ECan meeting, several councillors expressed concern that they were being asked to approve the 2010-11 annual plan for public input when they might not be around to oversee its implementation.

Cr Eugenie Sage questioned whether there should be "taxation without representation".

The role of ECan councillors in the annual plan process was to receive public submissions and strike the rates, she said. That was almost impossible to achieve, given the uncertainties generated by the Creech report and the "manufactured crisis with management of water".

But ECan chief executive Bryan Jenkins said if the council did not have an approved annual plan by June 30, "the council stops functioning" on July 1.

Deputy chairwoman Jo Kane recommended postponing the process until the March 25 meeting, but a tied vote meant the status quo of debating the audited report for public input prevailed. As a result, Kane said she would "very reluctantly" not support the budget, which proposes a general rates rise of 3.9 per cent and a targeted rates increase of 14.3 per cent, giving an overall increase of 8.7 per cent. "I won't sign off anything that I do not get a sense we will have responsibility for at the end of it," she said.

Cr Jane Demeter said it was difficult to carry out "business as usual with a huge grim reaper hanging over us".

The annual plan was approved for publication by seven votes to four.

- © Fairfax NZ News