The Waikato district’s general rate has risen 5.19% this year and ratepayers will see what that means in notices in the mail next week.

Individual rate increases will vary depending on ratepayers’ property type, value, location and the services that are available to them.

Rates notices will also include targeted rates that apply to the property, and a number of them have risen.

Nominations have opened for local body elections, including those for the Waikato District and Waikato Regional councils.

It’s time to consider whether you think you can make a difference in your community.

Waikato District Council Chief Executive Gavin Ion urged prospective candidates to get their nominations in now.

The Waikato District Council is planning to introduce external specialist Maori representatives to its principle council committees after October’s local government elections.

Chief Executive Gavin Ion said that the council and iwi were keen to improve the opportunity for Maori to contribute to the council’s decision-making.

Nearly 700 metres of freshly laid concrete kerb on Birchwood Lane has been ripped up at a cost to ratepayers of around $40,000 after it was put in at the wrong height.

Locals were aghast to see the new kerb being ripped up last week within days of it being completed on the 340m stretch of road linking Birchwood Lane to Devine Rd.

The error will add at least another 11% to the cost of the project.

Tamahere’s representatives have slammed the NZ Transport Agency for deceiving it over promises to deliver safe pedestrian and cycle ways across a community severed by the Waikato Expressway.

The Tamahere Community Committee believes NZTA and its expressway contractors have been stringing it along with insincere consultation for more than a decade.

Ten months after Waikato district book lovers were outraged at losing access to the Hamilton libraries the city council has welcomed rural readers back.

From Monday, July 1, 23,000 people in the Waikato district, including those in Tamahere and Matangi, can once again borrow books freely from their closest city libraries.

Hamilton City Council re-approved shared library services with the Waikato District Council at a meeting this week.

Sanderson Group, which is developing a new retirement village in Tamahere, has sold the bulk of its villages to major operator Arvida for $180 million.

Group chairman Fraser Sanderson told the NZ Herald that his son, Nathan, 30, who was starting out on his own, would continue to develop the Tamahere Country Club.

Four students from Tamahere’s Montessori School have represented New Zealand at a United Nations meeting in Italy.

The 10- and 11-year-old students, Avera Ngawaka, Aengus Moore, Aidan Smith and Husain Mehdi, took part in the Montessori Model United Nations – an international conference hosted at the UN Rome headquarters in May.

The four Kiwi primary school pupils were called on to represent UN member, Turkey, at the event.

New Zealand’s education watchdog has hailed the success of a Tamahere School reading programme to educators nationwide.

The Education Review Office (ERO) has featured the school’s innovative library-based programme for Year 5 to 8 students as a top example of effectiveness in keeping children engaged and achieving in reading.

This week the school said it was proud to see the ERO celebrate its reading success “and our wonderful librarian, Mrs Theresa Kewish.”

Waikato District Council is extending its deadline yet again for further submissions on the submissions that it received on its Proposed Waikato District Plan (Stage 1).

The new closing date is now July 16.

The council had already said it was extending the original deadline when it discovered errors in its published summary of submissions.