Tsunami sirens, Omanu Surf Lifesaving Club's lease and city heart project workshops will all be part of a discussion at Tauranga City Council's meeting this afternoon.

As a result of a decision made at the inaugural meeting on November 22, the city council is now publicly notifying the city heart project workshops and the discussion topic.

More workshop time is set aside for the city heart discussion on Wednesday, as discussion of a water allocation plan change takes place.

The city council's many workshop meetings are now public, and are where councillors discuss information provided by staff or others, before making a decision.

The first ‘working' meeting of the new council terms starts with two people speaking in the public forum; Bryan Norton wants to talk about the New Year's Eve festivities, and former city councillor Mary Dillon wants to talk about trees in Second Avenue.

The first business is Councillor Steve Morris's notice of motion regarding tsunami sirens.

Tauranga City Council backed out of the tsunami debate in 2013 upon it becoming known that tsunami warning sirens could not be turned on soon enough to warn western bay residents.

A tsunami generated by a large movement in the Kermadec Trench would reach Tauranga within an hour, and it would take that long for the scientists to consult the earthquake data and make a decision.

It would not give people meaningful time to get clear, which is why the council has since then focused on the resilient community approach, or the ‘run for the hills' policy.

The council invested instead in defining and building escape routes and education programmes, to support a community that will be able to look after itself and act without an official warning being given.

Public concerns have been stirred following confusion over the tsunami warning made following the Kaikoura earthquake on November 14.

Several councillors were contacted by members of the community expressing concern that Tauranga has no civil defence siren alerting system, says Steve Morris in his notice of motion.

There is now a national standard on tsunami sirens, which there wasn't in 2013.

But the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management's endorsement of electronic sirens has been criticised.

The argument between advocates of electronic sirens vs the ‘air raid' sirens wasn't settled in Tauranga.

Steve Morris' Notice of Motion is seconded by fellow coastal ward Councillor Leanne Brown and air raid siren advocate Councillor Bill Grainger.

They want another look at sirens because they can awaken sleeping people where text systems may not, and they want more pressure on the government to establish a 24/7 emergency Operations Centre with access to a network of threat detection technology like warning buoys.