PROPOSED CITY LOAN

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 97, 18 January 1935, Page 8

PROPOSED CITY LOAN

Ratepayers’ Association Raises Objection FURTHER DETAILS SOUGHT Formal objection to the raising of the proposed loan of £159,000 by the Wellington City Council has been made the Wellington Ratepayers’ Association, and at a meeting of the association’s executive on Wednesday evening, the chairmai}, Mr. 11. H. Miller, reported on the correspondence which the association had had with the Local Body Loans Board. Objection had been made not upon the ground that the whole of the street works, storm whiter drainage and other works for which the money was to be raised was unwarranted, but on the broader issue that a great number of items had been included in a loan scheme that rightly should be carried through, out of revenue jn the ordinary course of civic activity. “The board was reminded that a pernicious practice of extracting the utmost limit in rates and then failing t° live within the rate income had grown up and was continuing to operate in Wellington’s municipal life,” Mr. Miller continued. "It was also pointed out to t.he board that the reason an already huge rate income was insufficient to meet necessary expenditure for maintenance, administration and co-ordin-ated development of city works was that past borrowings for capital work entered upon years ahead of the time they were required, had grown to such a figure—nearly £6,ooo,oo6—that the interest payments now absorbed (as a first charge upon the rates) over threefifths of the total rate levy.” The association maintained that if not checked, the borrowing proclivities of municipal bodies would create such ever-increas-ing interest bills that practically the whole of a legitimate rate levy would be swallowed, irrespective of what might be required to administer and maintain a city. Another point that had 'been made in the le.rter to the board was that people who owned property—a great many of whom were merely home owners—were now heavily' taxed, and that it was not just to further pledge their properties and thereby add to their rate liability.

“The association strongly urged upon the board the wisdom of insisting that the Wellington municipality should live within its income until such lime as the city’s debt had been reduced very considerably,” he continued. The Loans Board had then asked the association whether it objected in detail to any of the items contained in the loan proposal, but, Mr. Miller said, he thought that before replying a sub-com-mittee should wait upon the Town Clerk and discuss with him Hie likely objections. This course was adopted. Fourteen items on the proposed loan schedule were queried, and these will be brought before the authorities for comment before a final reply is made to the Loans Board.