The Art Gallery saga, Episode II. But first. There has been a development. On Friday morning, October 17 - the day the Weekend Sun first mentioned that I had relaunched Upstairs Downtown as an online blog - the director of the Tauranga Art Gallery, Richard Arlidge phoned me, the first person to do so, to tell me that in my Art Gallery blog, Episode I (see below) I had it all wrong. His main argument was that, "Did I know the Art Gallery asset was owned by the Tauranga Art Gallery Trust?"

"Yes," I replied, "but the trust is now a subsidiary of the Tauranga City Council and that councillors now appoint all the trustees."

Director Arlidge disputed this, so I referred him to a recent council meeting where councillors resolved to appoint the trustees.

Astonishingly, he then informed me that was just a "rubber stamping process".

Now while he has a point, inasmuch as it is true to say councillors didn't pay a lot of attention to that particular agenda item, I'm reasonably sure most councillors will be unimpressed by the fact that a ratepayer-funded employee looks upon them as rubber-stamping non-entities. As a cheque-writing ratepayer contributing to his salary I can't say I was all that impressed either!

Now, on with the big switcheroo from a voluntary community funded project to a ratepayers' arbitrarily funded one.

Further to the Tauranga Art Gallery's double life as an independent charitable trust while being under the direction of the city council's bureaucracy (City Hall): It has been pointed out to me that when the trustees sought their second $1,000,000 grant from ratepayers, they weren't really breaking their promise of not coming back for more. As mentioned in my earlier blog (below), when the trustees came calling in 1999 for a ratepayer grant of $1,000,000 to help buy the old BNZ building, they promised they would not be back with their hands out.

What I've now realised is that when they came calling the first time they were independent trustees acting on behalf of art lovers at large. Nothing to do with council in terms of management. On their second visit in May 2004, they were then really servants of City Hall. That meant it wasn't the trust asking for more, it was the council itself using a roundabout route of extracting another $1,000,000 capital grant from ratepayers - plus many millions more in ongoing operational expenses.

It is quite possible that City Hall, via its City Directions Department, cooked up the whole extra funding manoeuvre anyway. When the trustees presented their case for that extra million - along with almost $1,000,000 a year annually for operational expenses - they had already accepted the City Hall condition that the City Council took over control of the entire operation.

Council achieved this objective through the formation of a Council Controlled Organisation, or CCO. It is likely very few outside the inner circle would have known exactly what this meant.

The extremely short explanation is that a CCO (See Local Government Act, Sec 55 for the full story) is a council subsidiary, in effect owned and governed by its forming city council. The Art Gallery Trust CCO comes under the umbrella of the City Directions Department. The Council controls the trust by virtue of its sole right to appoint the trustees, and that role directly involves city councillors.

The long and the short of it is that the then councillors in effect approved the virtual demolition of the old BNZ building and the construction of what was to all intents and purposes an entirely new building - but for less than honourable reasons it was legally labelled a 'renovation' project.

A no-names chat with three 2004/7 councillors who voted against the granting of the extra million and the ongoing million-a-year operational expenses, revealed they had no idea they, as a council, in effect approved, on June 30, 2005, the entire project. Without exception, all councillors spoken to believed they had little, if any, control over the Gallery Trust rebuilding project. They seemed to have no idea that the men and machines that moved onto the site in February 2006 where actually carrying out the wishes of the Tauranga City Council, via its subsidiary the Tauranga Art Gallery Trust.

In setting up this grandiose project, city hall also lumbered ratepayers with interest and repayment instalments on the $2,000,000 thus far handed over to our very own gallery trust. Plus, as far as I can see, there's the ratepayer-funded business of 'deprecation', whereby we of the present generation pay twice for each and every one of council's City Hall Iconic Tower (CHIT) buildings. We pay to put them up, and while we're doing this we pay into a fund to make sure there's enough there to build them again after their use by date.

no-walls-captionedRenovation, read eighty percent or so demolition, of the old BNZ building on the prime-site corner of Willow and Wharf streets began on February 2, 2006. As every one who went anywhere near the project in its early stages knows full well, the workmen and their machines in effect demolished most of the old building while at the same time fashioned a completely new art palace on the original building's 'footprint'. The finished new building included the all-new impressive tower. The whole thing being the ultimate CHIT status symbol.

And, let's agree now, it truly is a grand building. We have definitely joined the art-aware club. This is apparently a vital necessity if we are to survive as a vibrant, forward-moving city.

But by adopting a smoke and mirrors approach, the new Tauranga Art Gallery Trust acting on behalf it its City Hall masters undertook a 'renovation', even though it was in reality a major reconstruction project.

This meant the Art Gallery Trust/Tauranga City Council avoided the necessity of applying to the TCC for a new building permit. You see, by undertaking a mere 'renovation' the Trust/Council avoided the inconvenience of meeting TCC rules applying to new buildings, rules which presumably the TCC had decreed were necessary for the public good.

Now, you may conclude that this whole refurbishment-renovation-reconstruction charade meant council neatly, even if perfectly legally, subverted its own rules.

Maybe some of you, like I did at the time, contacted a friendly councillor and asked what was going on opposite the city council headquarters. My councillor contact told me the Gallery Trust had a perfectly legal right to do what it was doing and that the apparent total reconstruction had nothing to do with council or councillors. "Some councillors are just as disturbed about it as you are," he told me.

tower-captionedWell, if councillors didn't get to see and approve the new building design before demolition and construction began, then, other than the City Directions Department, who did? As the building project was really a city council project, shouldn't city hall have wised up councillors before construction began? Further, how many cheque-writing ratepayer residents of Tauranga had any idea what went on here? City Hall never gave us the opportunity to approve or reject part, all or none of the proposed works.