HOBSONS BAY RATES
I take issue with some of the misinformation in your report on Hobsons Bay council’s proposed borrowings in next year’s budget (“Briffa bristles over budget debt, ‘inequity’”, May 7).
Firstly, the $7.3 million of borrowings are not to accelerate the $30.5 million in capital works, as your reporter suggested.
Nearly all the borrowings are being used to cover the shortfall in the defined benefit superannuation scheme, which we were locked into decades ago.
All councils in the state have been hit by the defined benefits scheme shortfall and many are combining together through the Municipal Association of Victoria to get the best interest-rate deal from financial institutions to pay for that.
Secondly, suggestions by Tony Briffa that the council is borrowing money for the first time is a bald-faced lie.
From even before I joined the council in 1999, the council has had a debt. It has never been debt-free in the past 15 years. It had borrowings in the five years Tony Briffa was on the council.
Which rock was the former councillor hiding under in all that time?
If Briffa is concerned about the council’s budget, then the former councillor shouldn’t have quit.
This is just sour grapes from somebody carping from the sidelines because they have lost their power.
Cr Peter Hemphill, Hobsons Bay City Council
As an older ratepayer who certainly does not get value from her rates, I object to going into debt to fund those who can afford it.
My home had bitumen laid many years ago in the street outside. The edges to that are still not sealed and chunks fly off.
There has been some remediation in the street, but only in front of certain houses. Why?
I am 74 and have had bilateral hip replacements. My task today was to try to extricate the kikuyu grass that had grown in the so-called mulch dumped on a tree the council decided to grow on my nature strip. There used to be regular work done on nature strips; now residents must do their own.
I absolutely object to funding cycle paths. Shared paths are just a joke; cyclists endanger anyone trying to walk on them. Bicycle Victoria would seem to have council at their beck and call.
I would suggest that rates be scaled so that those receiving the benefit pay the price, and the silvertails pay most.
The only benefit I get from council is a disabled parking sticker, which I would not get if my medical condition did not require it.
But finding disabled parks is getting more difficult every day.
Policing of these parks and fining overstayers might bring the council more revenue if they chose to follow up on that.
Doris LeRoy, via web
As a resident of Altona Meadows, I have a right to know the breakdown of capital works expenditure, by suburb and ward, in the Hobsons Bay 2014-15 budget.
If there is nothing to hide, then release the details so that we are all informed.
I’m not happy about going into debt at all, especially if it means funding works that are unfairly distributed in favour of a couple of suburbs.
If my memory serves me correctly, many years ago, before the council amalgamations took place, Williamstown council was in the red. It seems that the current council is headed down the same financial debt track, largely to service Williamstown’s needs. I hope I am wrong. But it will take the release of the budget details to convince me.
Marilyn Montgomery, via web
