Garden centre goof

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 14, Issue 650, 20 August 1996, Page 4

Garden centre goof

• How can the RDC justify spending $242,000 of ratepayers' money on pine trees when there is essential work being put aside through lack of funds? And another thing, just how much is paid out in so-called consultants' fees which in my and most other people' s opinion is a totally unrecoupable waste of rates money. The decision of RCL to sell Ohakune and Taumarunui garden centres comes as no surprise. Mr Podmore is reported as saying that these two operations have been contributing to RCL'soverall profits. Then why try to sell profitable businesses in an already depressed economy? If one takes into account the thousands of dollars of ratepayers' money used to buy the outlet in Taumarunui in the first place, plus the cost Of setting up such an expensi ve venture in a side street in Ohakune, then perhaps the picture is not as rosy as'Mr Podmore would have us believe. Perhaps he would explain why the seven-day garden centre here in Ohakune was reduced to a five-day operation in the middle of the growing season and one of the two staff made redundant a few months after opening. We ratepayers will be the ones to pay for RCL's mistakes in the long run and the price we pay could be a massive rate rise to pay for RCL and RDC mismanagement.

PS

Bishop,

Rangataua