The first candidate for next year’s Waipa District Council elections may be confirmed soon.
Te Awamutu Business Chamber chief executive Shane Walsh said “I’m thinking about it,” he said when The News asked him.
“I am getting a lot of people asking me that at the moment. You can’t go in there as a single person and make changes. There needs to be a group of you. It would be very difficult.”
Walsh’s comments come after a Te Awamutu Business Chamber submission to the Enhanced Annual Plan in which he shared alarm that the council starts next financial year with $296.8 million debt and ends with $398.5 million debt.
“Possibly council has over borrowed in the good times and is now considering huge rate increases in the middle of a recession,” he said in the submission.
“Chamber is concerned about the quantum of capital investment allocated to support growth expectations which, according to council’s analysis of keys risks, are at best uncertain. The draft plan notes that at the end of the 2024/25-year, 57.8 percent of council debt is estimated to be growth-related. Growth-related three waters debt makes up 35 per cent of the total debt. Infrastructure costs significantly impact council debt levels, especially for high-growth councils that are seeing slowdown based on the current economic climate.”
Shane Walsh
The chamber suggested “a massive scale back” in the current projects for a new Cambridge Library, the Cambridge Town Hall upgrades, the Te Awamutu to Pirongia Cycleway and the Te Ara Wai museum.
At the same time the chamber did not support council cutting funding to community organisation and events.
“Maintain the existing level of council discretionary grant funding, District Promotion Fund, Heritage Fund and Community Events Fund. The chamber considers that this can be achieved by further reduction in capital spending from $158.4m,” the submission said.
Walsh, also chair of Destination Te Awamutu, spoke out against the council’s decision to slash Te Awamutu i-Site’s $157,000 grant.
According to Hamilton Waikato Tourism figures, visitor spend in Waipā for the year-ending October 2023 was $216 million with domestic visitors contributing $172 million.
“You have stopped funding at a time when tourism numbers are close to pre-Covid and we are in the middle of recession when any efforts to grow the economy should be supported,” he told the recent Enhanced Annual Plan hearing.
“Since the decision was made, we’ve gone through the process of making two staff redundant and one other gave notice before the process started.”
“We were never given the opportunity to present an alternative funding plan,” he said.
“The only way we can afford to keep the centre going is to have a low-cost model of volunteers.”
The council subsequently granted Cambridge and Te Awamutu i-Sites a one off $30,000 each.
The board is now exploring how that could work.
“The grant buys us a bit more time,” he said.
