UPDATE (4pm Monday): Rotorua's Mayor has just issued a media release indicating the Council is poised to do a U-turn and veto the spending at its meeting on Thursday! It looks like our campaign is paying off!
Rotorua's Mayor, Steve Chadwick, has ordered five tonnes of mud from South Korea for Rotorua's Mudtopia Festival scheduled for December.
The proposed spend on mud (reaffirmed by Council last week) made international headlines and saw the Taxpayers' Union mascot "Porky the Waste-hater" present a "certificate of achievement and imagination for wasting public money. The Rotorua District Residents and Ratepayers has also challenged the waste, the need for any bio-security and health risks, and the poor judgement involved.
We're not against the Mudtopia event, but say spending $90,000 of combined ratepayer and taxpayer money on foreign mud is ridiculous!
The key purpose of Mudtopia is to promote Rotorua as a mud destination. Why are we importing someone else's, when even the event's organisers say the local variety is just fine!
The Taxpayers’ Union and the RDRR invite the public to sign this petition calling for the foreign mud purchase to be vetoed, and a local variety used.
Petition:
"I call on Mayor Steve Chadwick and the Rotorua Lakes District Council, to find a better use for the $90,000 they plan to spend importing Korean Mud for the "Mudtopia" festival and use local varieties of mud for the event."
See who else is signing:
