Re the article "Georges River Council's 8.1 per cent rate add-on" (Leader, September 4)
Cr Kevin Greene and Cr Badalati mistakenly think their council has a mandate to waste ratepayers' money on feel good projects. It does not. You have a mandate to efficiently maintain roads, parks and garbage services.
What makes Georges River Council so special that it can live beyond its means when ratepayers who fund it are squeezed?
Hurstville Council's disastrous foray into the financial banking casino in 2008, which lost ratepayers $9 million, shows how financially naive and profligate it was.
Now they calling for more ratepayer money to fund their unaccountable sense of entitlement. Hurstville Council should have been put into administration. Its successor now wants to fleece ratepayers again with an 8.1% rate hike, with stagnant wage growth and an economy in recession.
If Georges River Council get the 8.1% rise, ratepayers will not be victims of incompetence and greed, merely accomplices. They keep voting for Labor and Liberal socialists who demand more while delivering less.
What they lack in efficiency they compensate with persistence. When you get used to spending other peoples' money you can never have enough.
Do something! At least write to the Minister for Local Government to object.
Stephen Jones
