By MATT NICHOLLS
FRUSTRATIONS exploded at the Armidale Town Hall on Saturday as angry ratepayers vented their feelings towards Armidale Dumaresq Council and its proposed 20 per cent rate increase.
More than 300 people filled the hall, with all seats on the ground and upper floors taken, while another 50 ratepayers stood around the perimeter walls.
One woman best described the meeting, saying “the anger in the room was so thick you could have cut it with a knife”.
The meeting was advertised as a council workshop, with plans to break the audience up into groups of 10, assigning a councillor to each group.
But the mob-like crowd refused, instead demanding for councillors to answer questions from the floor.
Acting general manager Keith Lockyer tried his best to explain why the council wanted and needed to increase the rates, but he was regularly interrupted as both questions and statements came flying from the floor.
The tension peaked when Sydney-based consultant Allen Mapstone tried to “sell” the rate increase to the audience.
Ratepayer Margaret Wolfer said she was made to feel like a child.
“I thought he was treating us like school children at times,” she said.
“The reason people were so angry is because there’s been a build up over many years where council has wasted money.”
Mrs Wolfer said she would write seperately to the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal to ask them not to approve the rate increase.
“I think a lot of people will write to IPART after Saturday’s meeting,” she said.
“I don’t think people trust council will pass on all the feedback.”
Mrs Wolfer said the absence of embattled general manager Shane Burns, who was on scheduled annual leave, was notable.
“The general manager was the very person who should have been there to feel the full force of community anger,” she said.
“I had some sympathy for the councillors and staff who had to face the crowd.
“We should remember that the financial management rests with the general manager, not the councillors.”
Mayor Laurie Bishop said the councillors would assess all feedback from the community before deciding to go through with the rate increase application.
He urged ratepayers to make submissions to council before 5pm on Friday.
“It is a contentious issue and council needs to balance the resistance of many members of the community to a rise in rates against their equally strong requirement that council should make headway on meeting the local infrastructure backlog,” he said.
“Because of rate-pegging, the extra imposts caused through cost shifting by governments and a significant drop in federal and state grants, the majority of councils in NSW are in a similar position,” Cr Bishop said.
“Understandably the community wants its roads, bridges, sporting fields and facilities and other public infrastructure upgraded and well maintained.
“That comes at a cost and the current rates structure cannot produce the income to deliver what needs to be done.
“We need to weigh up community views and council’s obligations and reach a position which is in the best long and short term interests of the city and surrounding district.”
Cr Bishop said the views expressed at Saturday’s workshop and in other submissions and consultations would be taken into full consideration.
A copy of the community engagement plan is available on council’s website at www.armidale.nsw.gov.au
