How many ratepayers are there in Tauranga? In a past count it was 55,000 at $9 per ratepayer – that's $495,000. Now come on you reckless rate-gatherers it doesn't cost that much to run a jazz festival?

I was a jazz musician most of my adult life and still love to listen to jazz but I don't expect anyone else to fund my enjoyment of jazz. It is high time that councils and governments stopped giving money to small groups in society and concentrated on the majority apart from real needs of course.

Nobody will die if a jazz festival is cancelled because those profiting from it lose a few bob.

There needs to be an all-out effort at the next election to strip the council chambers of all the dead wood and replace it with young sap bearing productive and live wood and bring Tauranga back to life.

A Bourne, Bethlehem.