Tauranga City Council chief executive Stephen Town has resigned and will take up the position of regional director for Auckland/Northland for NZ Transport Agency.

This is a further step up Stephen’s career ladder.
He had always indicated that he would not be seeking a renewal of his second term contract with council which was set up to finish mid 2011. With the super city reorganisation opening up opportunities across many sectors, he seized the moment and will commence duties for NZTA on October 11. Stephen has brought a high level of professionalism to his role with the city carefully treading the fine line between staff, politicians, ratepayers and the media. He will leave big boots to fill and he leaves the city in good stead. The CEO position is not black and white as some people think, but varying forms of grey. Certainly not a yes man, he laid his advice out to the politicians even when it was not what some wanted to hear. On a personal level Stephen and I had many “robust discussions” to put it mildly, but we always emerged to face the next issue with mutual respect. I wish Stephen well for his future career. In my view council is likely to appoint an acting CEO and leave the new appointment for the incoming council.

For what he’s worth
Some interesting comments in the media from some elected members about Stephen and some unfortunate ones too. For example Hayden Evans is quoted as saying that he didn’t agree with the salary the CEO position is paid. One of an elected member’s more important roles is that of performance review of the CEO twice a year, which incorporates setting the salary with external professional advice about the marketplace. These meetings are the place to register concerns, not belatedly in the media, long after the horse has bolted. Hayden is registered on the last two performance review meetings as being absent. Whilst these meetings are held in ‘confidential’ it is public information what the meeting was about and who was present and who wasn’t.
With the end of the financial year, here are all the elected members’ details in alphabetical order.
Mike Baker $77,472.30 including $712.60 travel expenses and eight days leave.
Greg Brownless $78,808.20 and eight days leave.
Stuart Crosby $109,777.71, car provided and nil leave.
Rick Curach $68,731.22
Hayden Evans $73,424.02, $4692.80 travel costs and 36 days leave.
Bill Faulkner $78,575.50, $781.20 travel costs and six days leave.
Bill Grainger $76,032.93, $2677.19 travel costs and expenses and four days leave.
Murray Guy $77,794.30 and five days leave.
Wayne Moultrie $79,950.20, $1354.50 travel costs and 11 days leave.
Catherine Stewart $72,148.74 and 10 days leave.
David Stewart $91,684.59, $2655.80 travel costs and two days leave.

Roles undertaken count
Not all elected members serve on the same number of committees – workloads vary. The more committees you serve on the more likelihood of you not being present at any one meeting on a simple numbers comparison. Likewise, ‘a days leave’ can be due to sickness, bereavement etc as well as taking a holiday. Council’s meeting programme doesn’t always fit around individual commitments and holiday plans. As I’ve noted before, these statistics are not a measure of any individual’s contribution nor workload. Despite this, some media highlight them as their apparent measure of worth. I’m pleased to be able, once again, to help them out. I have not counted meetings missed where elected members were absent on other council business.

Riding on with no trail
At joint governance committee, where the City and Western Bay councils consider matters of mutual interest, we discussed the demise of the Tauranga Moana Coastal Cycle Trail Project. Some members, including Western Bay Mayor Ross Paterson, were keen to keep it going in some form or other. Each council will discuss it individually and bring back their respective positions to a future meeting. As I noted last week I believe that the city won’t be heading down the track that had been outlined. But if there can be a ‘no cost option’ then we can look at it.

Working together for all
We also discussed options for the development of McLaren Falls Park. The city owns the park, but Western Bay is responsible for the roads and the bridge into the park. Both are mutually dependent and there are suggestions that a way forward is to make it a sub regional park, like TECT All Terrain Park and Huharua Park at Te Puna, where costs are split 50/50.
Trustpower is to dredge the lake at McLaren Falls to maintain their water storage capacity for power generation at Ruahihi power station. A recommendation will go forward to the incoming councils to retain the joint governance committee in the new triennium. This arrangement works well and in my opinion separate councils allows rural people to have rural councillors and mayor and the city has urban based elected members. This is crucial to effective understanding of our respective communities.