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CALLS FROM local Country Labor Party branch members to crack down on holiday letting, increase commercial rates and raise paid parking in certain areas to address the Shire’s ailing road infrastructure have been rejected by Council’s general manager Ken Gainger as an inadequate revenue source.
Additionally Mr Gainger claims that most of the shire’s roads “service ratepayers rather than visitors.”
Council staff are suggesting dramatic rate rises to pay for infrastructure via a Special Rate Variation (SRV) that, if approved by councillors, could see a massive 60 per cent cumulative increase across the board over four years.
Mr Gainger told The Echo, “We shouldn’t confuse the levying of a ‘Special Rate’ with an SRV. An SR is merely the apportionment of a greater portion of the current overall rate yield to a particular class of property or a precinct.”
It derives no additional revenue for Council.
“An SRV, if successful, generates a substantial (multi-million-dollar) and recurrent source of new revenue which we badly need to fund a sustained reduction in our infrastructure backlog.”
Why do the ratepayers have to pay for infrastructure needed for tourism? What do we get for our rate money? Oh yeh, the bins get emptied once a week. The tourism industry needs to be paying not the ratepayers!