Cr Bill Faulkner Faulkners Corner www.sunlive.co.nz

At a lengthy but full council meeting this week elected members heard from local entrepreneur and past MP Bob Clarkson. Colloquially know as Bob the Builder, he told us that he had run out of what he termed 'premium” industrial land to build his heavy duty buildings on.

He said he had purchased 520 acres over to the west at Tauriko behind the service station, a small part of which was within the city boundary and he appealed for help from council in rezoning this land. He said he would provide all infrastructure if the city was unable to accommodate infrastructure requirements. In my view, we should do all that is possible to help, provided there is absolutely no cost to ratepayers. It's a big call to say that an individual can provide water and wastewater infrastructure to a development and getting resource consent would/could be an Everest of a hurdle. Bob is a can-do livewire and the frustration of modern red tape processes oozes out of him. Another consideration is what happens into the future with an isolated development surrounded by other city linked infrastructure as the city grows?

Revealing ‘secrets'

For the many of you who don't get the Bay Times, the Friday edition's headlines screamed out ‘World Cup Secrecy' with a sub heading: ‘City plans secret meeting on how to spend your money'. Well that fell flat when the item was withdrawn from the agenda. Like last week, Murray Guy had again rung reporter John Cousins about a confidential meeting, even though the media had already been advised that the item was about ‘council meeting its contractual obligations for Rugby World Cup 2011 activities in Tauranga'. The item was in confidential at the request of Rugby World Cup. It seems reasonable for that request to be met first off, until elected members hear the reasons and then make a decision on what goes public. It is important that all businesses can be assured, where necessary, that their transactions can be conducted with council privacy and respect. Once details are worked out, and if ratepayer money is involved, then it goes into the public arena. The item was pulled from this agenda until next Wednesday's council meeting when representatives from interested parties can be present. There are a myriad of issues surrounding this it seems, but with three rugby teams, Fiji, Russia and Samoa only doing training here for a total of around 14 days it's hardly justifying big expenditure. Promotion to attract tourists in New Zealand to Tauranga for the Rugby World Cup is another matter. Already there have been large bookings in Tauranga with one French organisation booking 1150 people for the event. They will travel to the various matches. By the way, after all this, Mr Cousins failed to turn up to the meeting!

Park consultation

In other matters, the Blake Park Active Reserves Management Plan is to be amended, but consultation will be limited to the Blake Park users' forum group. It's not a review in its entirety, but there are changes proposed that may affect some users. The purpose is to reduce some planned expenditure as staff try to meet council's expenditure reduction plans.

The price of leadership

Elected members were advised that the remuneration authority has determined that the pool fund for their remuneration has increased by $6085 total or 0.8 per cent. The mayor's stipend goes up by $5600 to $132,100 – less a deduction for the car. David Stewart, deputy mayor $84,323.66 and Bill Faulkner as major committee chair $81,226.15. Bill Grainger, Terry Molloy, Rick Curach, Larry Baldock, Tony Christiansen and Wayne Moultrie $74,171.15 each. Hearings, committee members get paid separately on an hourly rate of around $70 an hour. The remuneration authority deems that there is a 25 per cent ‘public good' factor to be deducted in an elected members function and that is reflected in their determination. Apart from the mayor there is now a 30km daily excess imposed on councillors for the use of their cars which effectively eliminates urban mileage claims. There is a $1000 allowance for ‘communications' to help pay for things such as cellphones and internet. Mayor Stuart Crosby doesn't get this as he is supplied with items like a cellphone and laptop. New CEO Ken Paterson total remuneration around $320,000.

On the right trail

A proposal to have an elected member on all council control organisations was put on hold pending an elected member's request to review the entire CCO operation in conjunction with the pending arrival of new CEO Ken Paterson. The Art Gallery Trust in particular wrote a scathing letter which I asked chairman Graeme Horsely if it would be fair to take it that the trust regarded any elected member appointment as a threat. He said that was true. Most unfortunate as the intention was to assist a most difficult situation that has evolved with the art gallery. By setting up an elected member to ease tensions and liaise with a situation where one party thinks they are under funded by ratepayers and some of the others think they are over funded. Some just keep their heads down! Creative Tauranga seems to be getting the idea of the new way of doing things. Self help. They came to council seeking agreement for a partnership deal over a proposed Hairy Maclary public art trail. They propose setting up an endowment fund to purchase and maintain the works. This fund would be raised by public donation and the income vested to council for ongoing maintenance. Council, Creative Tauranga and author Dame Lynley Dodd would be the partners in what Creative Tauranga say will become an iconic attraction to our city.

Well done for this initiative instead of sitting and wailing for more ratepayer handouts as some others still do.

This week's mind bender – a committee is a cul-de-sac down which good ideas are lured and then quietly strangled – unsurprisingly attributed to 'anonymous”.