Mr Kircher made the comments after the Waitaki District Council yesterday approved a plan to increase water charges by 90% over two years from $1352 to $2566.
In addition, individual household water usage will be billed through the implementation of universal water metering, after a free testing period.
The massive increase in charges comes after the council last month decided to keep water services in-house, reversing its previously stated preferred option of joining the Southern Waters Done Well joint venture with three other Otago councils.
Mr Kircher, who voted against the plan, feared people could lose their homes due to the additional costs.
"I don’t want to consign any of our most vulnerable people to possibly losing homes, because they can’t pay rates with all of the other challenges they’re going to have around affordability — choosing how they might cut their food bill further or their electricity bill further.
"That’s not what I was here for. To my mind I have failed, I didn’t get the best option [Southern Water Done Well] over the line.
"We’ve got to put a plan in. We cannot change it now, I accept that, but I will not be supporting this plan which puts such huge rate improvement on our community when we had cheaper options to go for."
Cr Jim Hopkins, who also voted against the plan, said it represented a "loss of local control" over the government’s "perceived problems" with water services, which will result in the council having to take in more than $276 million in targeted rates by 2033-34.
"These are massive figures, massive amounts of money and the consequences of doing this and the fact that it’s going to bind future councils and effectively render null and void any of the other aspirations or projects people might wish to promote, really persuades me that we are making a mistake."
"We would be delusional to say that with a great deal of enthusiasm this is our preferred option. When I was elected to represent the ratepayers of Waitaki, I didn’t think I’d be negotiating with the Mafia. And in actual fact, the government of the day needs to be held accountable.
"I feel I’ve been blackmailed into a position. I asked specific questions of Department of Internal Affairs [DIA] at the first opportunity around buying time to look at our options. We were given advice. By the following week they had changed that position and I was screwed."
Mr Kircher and Cr Hopkins voted against approving changes to the water plan comprising investing $79m to address compliance issues and $9.45m to address resilience and renewal issues and to increase charges to meet investment and borrowing costs.
However, Cr Hopkins voted with the the rest of council to explore future opportunities for collaboration with other councils.
Waitaki District Council’s final Water Services Delivery Plan will now to be sent to DIA, as per legislation.
DIA will now either approve the plan, ask the council to alter it, appoint a facilitator to help or appoint a specialist to assume council powers over water issues to impose an acceptable plan.
Immediate work will be required to amend the council’s existing 2025-34 long-term plan to implement the water plan, once it has been approved by DIA.
The revised long-term plan will need to reincorporate Three Waters services and reflect the revised Three Waters budgets that are set out within the water plan.
