Issue six of City of York Council's leaflet invites the residents of York to select the rise in council tax option against reducing services.

This is a disgraceful cop-out by the council.

City councillors were happy to be elected to power believing, and boasting, that they best knew how the electorate was thinking. They should make the decisions for which they were voted in and stand or fall by their performance.

To ask residents to do this for them suggests a greater interest in safeguarding reputations and votes next time round than in dealing with the issues.

Balancing the council tax, or any other tax, is not new.

Financial astuteness, in business or in politics, means thinking "out of the box", finding innovative ways of doing more for less.

We read of the council's cost-saving exercises even down to cosmetic tinkering. Perhaps they have published and I have missed them.

But nowhere, for example, have I seen reference to a 'head count' and how the council has been reduced departmentally, and in total, as the power of the computer takes over.

The debacle over parking charges says much about the council's philosophy.

Having risked the cultural fabric of the city that councillors were voted into power to protect, no doubt they feel evening parking for a resident now costing only £1 is a triumph. This is not so.

A greater triumph would have been success in gaining a fairer and substantial improvement in the central Government funding to York. The exercise of asking residents to choose their own method of penalty is seriously flawed.

James Rayne,

The Poplars,

Princess Road,

Strensall, York.

Updated: 11:44 Thursday, January 06, 2005