Browned-off road verges may be upsetting some Alexandra residents but Vincent Community Board members were philosophical this week about brown versus green. Central Otago mayor Tony Lepper told board members the subject had been a hot topic in letters to community newspapers.
Since water metering was introduced for town supply water, some residents said they had stopped watering the road verge. It was difficult to get the message across to ratepayers that the aim with water metering was to reduce demand for water ''and if we can't do that, then we couldn't afford to upgrade water supplies''.
''Metering has had the desired effect and we have reduced demand for water,'' he said.
Martin McPherson said if an estimate was worked out for how much it cost to water the verge, residents might be pleasantly surprised at the figure.
''I worked out it costs me $42 a year [in water charges] to have a bath every night, so maybe our responses to questions about the water need to be put into dollars, so people understand it.''
Central Otago District Council corporate services manager Susan Finlay said ratepayers did not always look line-by-line at the items which made up the bill. Instead they looked at the final total. Tim Cadogan said he preferred to see some brown verges rather than [irrigation] water cascading over the road, as in the past.
''That used to annoy me.''
The judges of the Keep Alexandra Clyde Beautiful ''Best Street'' contest would not be taking brown verges into consideration, Barrie Wills said.
