Get a new abacus, Mickey
While the opportunity to comment on the draft Long Term Council Community Plan lasts another 10 days (till 12 May 2006), it seems commenters can't be sure that the document's figures are accurate.
Horizons have responded to allegations in the LTCCP summary claiming that the regional council proposes increasing urban rates by 25% and rural rates by 52%, with chairman Garrick Murfitt calling those figures "misleading".
"They imply increases of this size are the norm," he explains. "In fact they relate to a very few number (sic) of lower valued properties". The WDC has published "selective information", he says, despite the fact Horizons has "gone to great lengths to explain the nuts and bolts of the proposals to Wanganui councillors".
So what's the true position? Well according to Horizons an urban Wanganui property with a capital value of $61,000 will pay an extra $1 a week on its district council rates and an extra 35 cents a week to the regional council, if both draft Community Plans are adopted as they currently stand. A property with a capital value of $160,000 will also see a $1 a week increase for 2006/2007 district council rates and 40 cents a week for Horizons.
"At the end of the day percentages are misleading whether they come out high or low," Murfitt says. "What most people are interested in is the final dollars they pay out of their pockets."
Unlesss your aim is to score political points and deflect attention from your own profligacy, that's precisely the information you'd want people to have - exactly how much they'll be paying in additional rates. That would be easily illustrated in a graph or a table. So why isn't it clear in the LTCCP summary?
Incidentally, submissions on Horizons Community Plan close on 5 May 2006. Since the "nuts and bolts" of Horizons' spending is outside our ambit, we haven't analysed their expenditure plans. But we'd encourage readers to apply similar standards of skepticism to their draft Community Plan, and ensure that that extra 40 cents a week is justified.
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15 comments:
Funny, don't you think, that Il Diva was whining on sanctimoniously about the Chronic's inability to get its financial facts straight just a couple of weeks ago, accusing the journos there of being financially illiterate and manipulating figures to present a bad-news story. Especially given what he has tried to do to Horizons. Good on Garry Murfitt for not rising to the bait. Although in a square go, I know who my money would be on...
The “confusion” over what MickeyMayor said in the LTCCP summary wouldn’t exist if everyone, including the Horizons chap, understood what LTCCP stands for in the Vision context. It really stands for Laws Totally Craps Copious Propaganda.
When you’re the King of Spin an LTCCP is not a serious planning exercise but just another opportunity for more cynical abuse,blame, propaganda and straight-out lies. Oh and another chance to dump your weird taste in art and yet another mug shot of your own celebrity self into every letter box in town.
Incompetent Mickey can't even get his facts straight on something as simple as Horizon's rates. It takes Garrick Murfitt to set ratepayers straight, in effect to let Wanganui know that our LTCCP is probably riddled with Mickey-induced errors and ommisions (remember Mickey saying that selective reporting is the same as lying?).
What an ignorant clown. Coming soon to a Tui billboard: Michael Laws. Yeah right.
From an earlier post
Anonymous said...
The abuse against the mayor & his family in this blog is the reason why the mayor & his family get so much support. Stick to the issues!!
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You really are a laugh a minute, anon. For a start, the comment asking whether two people who can’t control themselves in their personal lives can provide a suitable environment for raising young children was NOT abuse. It’s a legitimate question in view of the fact that the mayoress is now in the gun for dishing out abuse against a Horizons staffer, at the same time as Wanganui is buzzing with the gruesome details of what the mayor called his closest aide.
What makes this anonymickey sort of outrage even more ridiculous is that this latest outbreak of preciousness seems to be coming from someone who thinks it’s just fine for a celebrity mayor and his consort to milk every possible ounce of publicity out of their kids, then turn cry-baby when their parenting suitability is questioned here.
In recent weeks we’ve heard all about family matters ranging from the 19-week scan results, the “bump” in the meyorressy’s tummy, just about every burb fart fever and cough of the little bump on the floor of the mayoral mansion and finally, in the Sunday paper, details of the mayoressy’s shopping habits and What She and the Kids Did in their Holidays.
And now you plead that some sort of Chinese wall should separate the “private” from the professional lives of a couple of inveterate publicity grabbers who seem to think that “putting family first” means getting the kids on the cover of Woman’s Weakly? Yeah right!
Spot on LW. Either Mickey can't do sums, in which case he's incompetent, or he deliberately tried to mislead the public, in which case he's a traitor to his constituents. Nothing new then.
Re the "confusion" about where the "public" ends and the "private" begins in the lives of a couple of small town wannabe celebs and their kids...
It’s not as if our mayor is careful to keep his abusive proclivities away from the delicate eyes of his kid. I heard that while on a family walk near the family home he gave the finger to a constituent/neighbour and his wife as they drove past.
Who is the gutless wonder who posted these comments? Someone who wants LawsWatch up for defamation methinks.
"It’s a legitimate question in view of the fact that the mayoress is now in the gun for dishing out abuse against a Horizons staffer, at the same time as Wanganui is buzzing with the gruesome details of what the mayor called his closest aide"
I used to think this forum was a good thing for discussing issues despite its anti-mayor bias. I know Michael Laws is big enough not to worry about but lately this blog has got petty and nasty and its ad hominem attacks are pissing the rest of us off out here. Whoever is the moderator should start doing their job because I'm starting to sympathise with the mayor and thats not where my original sensitivities started!
Yet again LawsWatch you're wrong. Bring back Carol because she never made these mistakes. I looked at my draft Horizons plan delivered in my Midweek and Horizons provided two examples for Wanganui with one urban and one rural. Did you read that? A 52% increase in rural rates and 24% in urban rates provided by Horizons - not the WDC and not the mayor's office.
The proof was in all our letterboxes so it must be Murfitt who's telling the Murphies.
As one who did read the Horizons LTCCP, i don't see anywhere any rates information at all. Could someone point that out to me? I saw it in the summary document that was posted to my home but that was confusing because they picked a Wanganui residence, a farm and a business and then calculatred the 05/06 rates and then the 06/07 rates. I've got it in front of me again and I hate to point this out but the Horizons chairman is wrong. The percentage increases are as the Diva says they are, its as plain as light.
Could you explain L/Watch how this can be? At the moment I work on the theory that the Diva's enemies are my friends but Mr Murfit is making it very hard for me when Horizons figures appear to contradict him.
anon @ 8.09pm - The poster you quote is merely referring to two stories carried on the blog earlier this week. Reporting on the Mayor is our job, that's why we're called LawsWatch. That means that if he misbehaves in his official capacity (abuses a constituent, or a staffer) it's our business.
anons @ 8.12 pm & 8.54 pm - You have a point, in that Horizons are to some extent the authors of their own misfortune. They too should have made clear, in dollar and not percentage terms, what rates rises mean to the average person. They only did so when Michael Laws used the percentages to create a distorted perception.
Both Councils, in fact, could very easily have set up an online calculator similar to those used by finance companies to tell you how much you'll pay based on how much you borrow. Plug in the value of your home, and the calculator tells you how much extra you'll pay in rates.
Percentages are misleading, as Murfitt points out. The difference is, Horizons didn't use them to attack the WDC, Mickey used them to attack Horizons - when he could have shed some light on the truth instead.
Lawswatch - you said ...
"anon @ 8.09pm - The poster you quote is merely referring to two stories carried on the blog earlier this week. Reporting on the Mayor is our job, that's why we're called LawsWatch. That means that if he misbehaves in his official capacity (abuses a constituent, or a staffer) it's our business."
WHERE IS THE PROOF?? These are unsubstantiated allegations by anonymous people who hate the mayor. If it happened, don't you honestly think people would go to the Chronicle, make Code of Conduct complaints or even alert other non-vision councillors??
As for the 'fingers' story - no-one does that unprovoked. Tell us the whole story (if it's true).
anons @ 8.12 pm & 8.54 pm - You have a point, in that Horizons are to some extent the authors of their own misfortune. They too should have made clear, in dollar and not percentage terms, what rates rises mean to the average person. They only did so when Michael Laws used the percentages to create a distorted perception.
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It's pretty obvious you haven't sighted the Horizons draft LTCCP summary, LW. They did put the dollar terms in and it was the mauyor who noted the percentage increases and not Horizons. The earlier posters are right about the fact that Horizons gave no figures in their LTCCP but only gave average estimates in their summary document which has excited everyone. Can you imagine if the WDC had a 24% rates increase? Everyone would go apeshit.
The mayor's abacus is working just fine. Can you explain how his Horizons rates percentages are wrong, LW? Did I miss that bit in my New Maths curriculum?
I think that the Law's supporters on this blog are missing Helen's imput.
You guy's have lost your edge
Can you explain how his Horizons rates percentages are wrong, LW?
There's a difference between "wrong" and "distorted", anon. As Murfitt explained, as we have explained, the percentage increases quoted by Michael Laws relate to a small number of low-valued properties.
It'd be like us saying "some of the commenters on this blog have IQs in the single digits" and then using that as a blanket assessment of everyone. It's true as statement of fact but misleading, because in general those people get edited out, whilst most - inlcuding those who, like yourself, disagree with us - make a cogent argument and clearly have adequate grey matter.
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