Last week saw the final full council meeting for the year. Mayor Stuart Crosby thanked staff and elected members for their contribution. As he was speaking about elected member's contributions, some wag chimed in 'from time to time”.

A lengthy meeting started with re-confirming the BOP Cricket Association proposal for its long term $6 million project for an upgraded cricket facility on Blake Park. Council has already agreed a $543,720 contribution for public toilets, storage and changing facilities. The arrangement also includes a requirement to provide for other/future users. BOPCA has a way to go in its quest for the rest of the money.

Maintaining historic Tauranga
Ratepayers will stump up $15,000 to address the matter of memorial headstones at the Historic Village. They were shifted from Mission Cemetery a long time ago and are languishing and deteriorating at the present site. They do have, we were told, historic value even though they were not the actual headstones of the graves. The original markers were wood that had rotted away and the cemetery now had proper markers, making these markers somewhat redundant, which is how they ended up at the village. Council will use some of the money to facilitate a community group to maintain historic cemetery architecture in Tauranga. They reckon they have the top half of the original flagpole from the Monmouth Redoubt too!

Divorced from reality
Rick Curach's Notice of Motion to instruct staff to cut $2.5 million or $5 million from the budget was also the subject of a lengthy debate. I wrote about this last week and nothing much changed from previous discussion. Rick said he wasn't serious on cutting $5 million. Murray Guy asked if there was anything else Rick wasn't serious about and said he would have appreciated communication from Rick in putting the notice together. Murray said it was Rick's initiative, not a Pick 6 initiative, and Murray wouldn't be supporting it. Rick said he ‘didn't know what was going on behind closed doors and didn't want to get too friendly with staff'. This notice would make staff focus on even more reductions from last year's effort.
I said it was a noble thought but pre-empted the budget process, which is a very thorough process and allowed minute scrutiny if the effort was put in.
Stephen Town said the staff would be available during the recess to answer elected members queries over the first draft budget we were handed at the meeting. Hayden Evans said it wasn't right to leave it to staff to come up with the proposed reduction and elected members needed to give direction, but he supported it.
Bill Grainger said it didn't address the matter of what Levels of Service would be reduced to achieve budget reduction but he too supported it. Wayne Moultrie asked if Rick had had his proposal costed out and Rick said he hadn't. Estimates were given of up to $200,000 by staff.
Wayne said Rick was divorced from the reality of the situation. There is some validity in that assertion in my opinion and I said that the opportunity was there for Rick to do the hard yards, drill down into the detail and come up with the goods. It is time consuming and sometimes frustrating but that's what you have to do. In the end the motion was lost 7-4 with Rick, Catherine Stewart, Hayden Evans and Bill Grainger in support.

Huffing and puffing
In other matters Tauranga City won't be getting involved in a Local Government move to ban gang patches. Consensus was that it was an individual council matter.
A TAFM proposal (Transparency, Accountability and Financial Management review) from Local Government Minister Rodney Hide was tabled.
In my opinion it's a damp squib that won't actually change much for grassroots ratepayers. Being a minister outside of Cabinet (Cabinet is where all the real power lies) Minister Hide is like a bulldog with rubber teeth. The more I see, the more it looks like he will be the fall guy if/when the Auckland SuperCity proposal turns to custard. And if it doesn't, then Cabinet can take the credit.
There will be a lot of huffing and puffing over TAFM and in the end all that you and I will see will be the Long Term Council Community Plan (LTCCP) reduced to Long Term Plan (LTP). A lot of effort to get rid of two Cs.

Preserving independency
I sat in on the appeals to the Representation Review Authority. In another questionable/surprising move for a Government who said they were going to take local government seriously, National reappointed the committee set up by the former Labour Government. Labour party hacks is how they have been described.
Chairwoman Sue Piper, a deposed Wellington City councillor; Gwen Bull deposed from the Auckland Regional Council and ex Rodney Commissioner Grant Kirby were responsible for Tauranga's present electoral make up in the face of a public referendum that called for something else. Appeals this time mainly were from Mounties (six, I think) wanting to preserve their independency via a Ward. Council's majority view was that we are past that now and with the new Harbourlink are now one city.
Last time their decision seemed to be centred around appeals and ignored the rest. Mayor Stuart Crosby presented a very fair, considered and unemotional outline of council's position. So expect anything from this autocratic body. Sue Piper even fined Grant Kirby $50 to the Mayor's charity when his cellphone went off. Which he didn't pay. The chairmanship style reminded me of Queenie in Blackadder. In fact the whole scenario was like that! Submitters excepted! It's hard to believe National's claim to take local government seriously when you see all this unfolding. And of course they have power absolute with no accountability to anyone, including the Government!

Best wishes for 2010
This is the last column for the year and will return towards the end of January. I would like to wish you all a great festive season and best wishes for 2010. Thanks for your ongoing interest and support.