I am appalled that Tauranga appears to becoming a Police State.
The news that the Elizabeth Street carparking area has been implanted with spy sensors, is beyond all reason.
This is a time when Tauranga City Council should be exercising financial restraint and also be trying to encourage the shopping public back to the CBD -- not turning them away with stringent enforcement.
The Auditors report stated that TCC's 10 year plan is not financially sustainable, so why is City Hall so hellbent in looking at a program that will involve tens of thousands of dollars and take years to recover the outgoings?
What is going on here? I understand that Councilors knew nothing about this until they read it in the paper.
Are the motoring public ( who are also the shopping public ) now being treated like children?
It would appear so, by the following statement -- 'and more (sensors) could be introduced if carpark
users don't behave.
Tauranga Mainstreet Manager Kirby Weis says it all, ' we can only implore council to put controls and measures in place to ensure the economic viability of the city centre is not impeded by stringent enforcement and inflexable parking plans.” Don't hold your breath, Kirby.
Bill Humphrey, Tauranga South.

TCC responds:
The sensors collect data (they are not for enforcement) and are ‘on trial' to see if they will be of any use in the future for monitoring of carparks. A report on their usefulness for management of parking will go to the Council's Monitoring Committee in due course.
The issue of ‘financial sustainability' is being quoted from the Council's draft Ten Year Plan (February 2009) when the Council itself presented the long term funding dilemma to the citizens of Tauranga.
By the time the final Plan was adopted in June the Audit Office confirmed ‘the City Council has complied with requirements of the [Local Government] Act... demonstrating good practice' including section 101 on financial prudence.