Paula Southgate. Photo: RNZ / Robin Martin
Hamilton's mayor will travel to the Belgium town of Ieper (Ypres) for Anzac Day at the same time the city's residents are facing the biggest rates rise in two decades.
Paula Southgate said her visit, together with Maangai Māori leader Olly Te Ua, to Hamilton's sister city would cost the council up to $10,000 and allow them to honour the fallen on behalf of the city.
But ratepayers grappling with a proposed rate rise of 19.9 percent, increasing annually to a hefty 81 percent in five years, said taking the trip at this time was not a good look.
Self-employed mortgage broker Andrew Chain called the proposed rate rises "insane", and said in his submission on the council's Long-Term Plan the increases were "exorbitant, unaffordable, and, frankly, seem utterly disconnected from the economic realities faced by many residents in our community".
Chain said as a Hamilton ratepayer he understood the need for essential services and infrastructure development.
"However, the magnitude of the proposed rates increases is simply unsustainable for many households and businesses. It is unjustifiable to burden already struggling individuals and families with such excessive financial demands."
He urged the council to reassess its spending priorities, including the mayor's trip to Ieper.
Another ratepayer, who did not want to be named, said the mayor and councillors needed to look at their spending before saddling homeowners with unaffordable increases in a cost of living crisis.
"It's an outrageous hit to put on ratepayers, and I think council should take a good look at their books and see where they can make cuts."
Homeowner Donna Berry said the rates rise seemed excessive, and felt there should be more spending cuts before rates increased so drastically.
"I think in the current financial climate when we are all noticing it at the supermarket [the Ieper visit is] just not a good use of money.
The panels being gifted to Hamilton Park at Ieper by Hamilton company Longveld. From left: Longveld director Les Roa, Mayor Paula Southgate, Pam Roa (Longveld director), Peter Bos, Chair of the Hamilton Ieper Project Trust, and Maangai Māori representative for Hamilton City Council, Lieutenant Colonel Olly Te Ua. Photo: Supplied
"Even if the council could afford it, I think the way it looks to the ratepayers is just not a good look."
Southgate said the trip to Ieper had been two years in the planning and she was flying economy to Belgium. Aside from accommodation, she was paying her own expenses on the ground.
"I acknowledge how challenging it is for many people in our community at the moment, and am committed to being financially prudent.
"This visit has been planned for some time and is about remembering and paying our respects to those who paid the ultimate price for peace, including our fallen Anzac soldiers, and thanking Ieper for honouring and remembering more than 4600 of our Anzac servicemen who are buried in around 80 cemeteries in Belgium."
She and Te Ua would each read the 'Ode of Remembrance', including in te reo, at Menin Gate, where 'The Last Post' has been played almost every night since 1928 in respect of Commonwealth soldiers who died in West Flanders during World War I.
She and Te Ua would also deliver a gift of two panels naming the entrance to a park dedicated to Hamilton, which had been made and donated by Longveld and freighted to Ieper at no cost to ratepayers.
Southgate said the council was not alone in facing some of the most significant rates increases in recent history, and the main drivers of the extra $50 million the council needed to find each year was inflation, interest rates and depreciation.
The council had worked hard to deliver a no-frills budget she said, including removing $130m of projects in the first three years and $100m of spending over 10 years.
More than 40 percent of non-urgent transport upgrades were cut, and $7m had been cut from the personnel budget in the first year, while event sponsorship and community grants had also been reduced.
"The budget is lean. There are no pet projects. In fact, many aspects that make city living nice have been put on the backburner."
One project that was still funded to go ahead was a walking and cycling bridge connecting Hamilton East to the new theatre precinct at the southern end of Victoria Street, which was still under development.
That was because $29m of the $40m cost was being paid for by central government as part of a previous infrastructure funding grant.
Councillor Ewan Wilson, who will travel at no cost to Hamilton to another sister city - Chengdu in China - to attend a mayoral forum later this month, said sister city relationships provided valuable business, tourism and economic benefits to Hamilton.
