…A city rail Loop. Yep, he does, he even sent out a Christmas card begging for it.
His Christmas wish is a socialist pipe dream. Just the other day he was hiking rates and that was just to pay for the existing frivolities of the pinkos.
Mr Brown, whose job as mayor is to deliver the budget, argued at yesterday’s strategy and finance committee that the maximum rate of 4.9 per cent was a responsible target and would work for a final figure of mid- to high-3 per cent. The final figure would “go down from here, not up”, he said.
Once again Len Brown is lying to the ratepayers of Auckland. If he is to get his Christmas wish of City rail loop then he is going to have to pay for it. Given that current estimates of costs for the City rail loop exceed $2 billion dollars and Steven Joyce has indicated that if Auckland was to have such a toy then they would have to stump up with at least half the cash, then it is safe to assume that Len’s Christmas wish will present Aucklanders with a bill of over a $1 billion. That has to be paid for. To be safe and conservative let’s use a billion for some calculations.
Each 1% rise in rates nets the city $14 million. In order to fund the capital costs Len’s Christmas wish of a City rail loop it would take a rates rise of 71.42%!!
Of course that would ensure the instantaneous lynching of Len Brown and which ever councillors proposed that. So the sneaky little commies will talk using weasel words like “Infrastructure Bonds”. Those are fancy words for Debt. Even if funded with debt…ooops Infrastructure Bonds. the cost to rates payer on interest alone for those debts…ooops…Infrastructure Bonds at a modest 8% would be a rates rise of 5.71% permanently for as long as it takes until the capital costs are repaid, just on interest. That doesn’t even take into consideration the repayment of the capital costs.
Len Brown actually lies when he says that the final figure for his rates increase will go down from 4.9 percent. It simply isn’t possible if he includes his Christmas wish of a City Rail Loop.
In the meantime I have put in a LGOIMA request for;
- All costs including artwork, design, consultancy and mail costs including postage and envelopes for the Mayoral Christmas card entitled “All I want for Christmas is a City Rail Loop”
- Copies of all drafts or versions of the mayoral Christmas card including those not selected.
- Mail list of recipients for the Mayoral Christmas Card
