In yesterday’s mail on 18 August I received a letter/brochure from Byron Shire Council (BSC) dated 11 August titled Byron Shire’s Financial Future. Ostensibly the letter was about making a claim to increase land rates by a compounded 35.03 per cent over three years. A rate well beyond past or projected inflation over a three-year period.
It estimated that the asked for rate increases would generate an additional $84m to Council over ten years. A neat and precise numerical claim for more revenue! However, the argument for why the money was needed, was not made as clearly and concisely. In fact we have to believe that ‘maintaining and renewing’, ‘building resilience’, ‘improving efficiency’ etc are not already important everyday Council processes. But they will be absolutely necessary in the future and must be paid for by increasing rates. The Council is precise about the per-cent increase asked for, i.e. 34.03 per cent, but it is not being precise about why/where is the need that leads to the demand for an increase.
I am nudging 80 years old. I’ve seen these vaguely worded claims before, many times before, and I simply don’t believe them! You can’t measure them and so you can’t know if they eventuate as promised. Trust us, give us the money, and over the next ten years we will spend it wisely.
In ten years most of the people pushing for the increase will not be around to face any consequences for decisions they make today. Like the developers along Jonson Street they will have created an outcome, good or bad, and will be gone. We will be left to suffer the long-term consequences, not them. We will be paying the increases requested, not for three years, not for ten, but for as long as Byron Council exists to ask for rates.
The process to find more information to evaluate the present request is totally stacked against us. We have been given a task to complete in 2-3 months (community consultation) when councillors themselves have taken much more (since they were elected) and the professional officers, well it’s their job, they live it.
According to the brochure the plan was ‘endorsed’ by Council in July and a resolution to proceed with the application will be made by them November/December. The ball has been rolling for a long time but not for us. It is designed to simply roll over us. It has been designed to claim that we have been consulted. When compared to council officers and the Councillors, we have not been consulted. Consultation is a two-way street. It is a dialogue, not a lecture!
I have not heard (been consulted) by any elected councillors on this. It is well beyond time that they should have tried to consult. The councillors endorsed the plan before they (and if they ever will) consulted us. The above letter from the general manager is all that has been directed to me. What does that say about how councillors treat voters on a matter that is fundamental for all of us?
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
