It’s been a busy time here at council, as we move to finalise the Long Term Plan (LTP) Year Two 2013-14, that was formerly known as the Annual Plan. Council staff and myself have been out and around the district over the past few weeks, discussing the plan in a series of public meetings.
We had a pretty good turnout and, as you would expect, plenty of lively discussions. On the whole most people I spoke to were pleased with the planned 1.87 per cent increase to the general rate. As we have flagged previously, those on targeted rates will see greater increases, as we have stopped the practice of cross-subsidising these areas from the general rate.
There was more tough news for the Huntly community recently, with the announcement of further layoffs by Solid Energy. Thankfully this latest round of redundancies will be smaller than the last one.
We have to remember that coal is a commodity and will almost inevitably suffer bad times as well as booms. Like many long-term Huntly residents I can remember back to 1987 when the newly created SOE Coalcorp, as it was then called, gathered its 900 or so Huntly staff one afternoon and announced that half of them would be laid off.
Huntly bounced back after that and I’m confident it will do so again.
Finally, Trish and I recently went to Pio Terei’s parenting show at the Huntly College hall. What a fantastic evening it was. Even though our kids have long since left home and we’re starting to welcome grandchildren to the world, we still found it to be very valuable.
His message about how to build an awesome whanau was delivered in a way that is easy to understand, with plenty of typical Pio humour and an obvious passion for creating great Kiwi families. We’re hoping to be able to get Pio back in the future, and if we do I would urge anyone to go and see him. His message is a powerful one for building strong families and therefore strong communities.