CAMBRIDGE NEWS | 1
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 12, 2024
Celebrating Life - Your Way
Jim Goddin JP Funeral Director
Grinter’s Funeral Home are dedicated to providing personalised and meaningful funeral services, as unique as the life you are celebrating. 07 827 6037
3 Hallys Lane, Cambridge office@grinters.co.nz www.grinters.co.nz Follow us on Facebook
FREE
It’s a real local newspaper
SEPTEMBER 12, 2024
Media release in the gun By Mary Anne Gill
A Cambridge Community Board member has taken a swipe at Waipā District Council for championing debt rather than reducing rates’ inflation. Andrew Myers, who is also a member of the Fonterra co-operative council, was responding to a media release Waipā put out last month - which The News chose not to publish but other media outlets published in full. In it, the council said it was set to net nearly $400,000 profit in a low-risk arbitrage deal.
Arbitrage is the simultaneous purchase and sale of the same asset in different markets to profit from a difference in its price. Deputy chief executive Ken Morris said the council had borrowed $50 million from the Local Government Funding Agency and then invested it in term deposits at the ANZ and BNZ banks at a higher rate than what it had borrowed it for. The council would pocket $384,000 when the deals matured in April, he said. But Myers, a dairy farmer who represents the Maungatautari ward on the community board, said
the council was at its debt ceiling and the media release should have focussed on the position of overall debt and the growing debt burden. “Explaining why we need more debt and how we plan to reduce debt over time would be very helpful,” he said. Waipa council has estimated its debt at the end of the current financial year ending June 30 will be nearly $400 million. Earlier this year international rating agency Fitch reaffirmed the council’s credit rating as AA-. But in a move which is bound to spook Waipā,
Andrew Myers
Hamilton City Council’s rating was downgraded from AA- negative to A+ negative watch. The outlook on the long-term rating
Peter Nicholl
was negative, S & P Global Ratings said. “The negative outlook on the long-term rating reflects the weakening institutional
Ken Morris
settings in New Zealand’s local government sector,” the rater said. Continued on page 2
Northern League berth beckons for Reds By Roy Pilott
Latin American football support in all its volume will invade Cambridge on Saturday as the town’s premier football club launches a two-game assault aimed at winning a place in the Northern League. Cambridge, Southern Conference champions, face a home and away battle with Northern Conference winners Waiheke United – a club which fields a team dominated by South American imports. Cambridge attracted a crowd of close to 1000 when it hosted Auckland City in the Chatham Cup earlier this season – its only loss of the campaign – and it’s a good bet that could be eclipsed. For the record, City, lost the cup final on penalties last weekend and is now preparing for the Club World Cup.
Waiheke won the Northern Conference with a 5-2 victory over previous leaders Waitakere last Saturday – six of its players were booked and one was sent off after collecting two yellows. Cambridge, coached by Jordan Shaw,
hasn’t played since August 31 when it completed 21 wins from 21 games in the Southern Conference – not bad for a team which lost four players, including Shaw, to knee injuries throughout the campaign. Waiheke was last in Cambridge in May
2018 when it won a Chatham Cup tie at John Kerkhof Park 3-2. Shaw says he’s looking forward to hearing the “Cambridge Ultras” make some noise on Saturday to help his team get a different result this time.
They’re Southern Conference champions – can Cambridge step up to the Northern League?
Household Hazardous Waste free collection event
NEW NAME, SAME GREAT TEAM AND SERVICE.
Cambridge | Sunday, October 13
Hogans is now ExpertEase. Total Accounting Solutions Free initial consultation
OPEN 7 DAYS Located at 41 Empire Street 07 827 7099 www.cambridgevets.co.nz
Contact us to book now.
Natasha Waters – Director
22-24 Victoria Street, Cambridge (07) 827 6486 admin@expertease.co.nz www.expertease.co.nz