Selloff of Tauranga's Inner City Greenspace

Tauranga City Councillors say they want to reduce Council’s debt – but this is just a red herring. Debt is not the issue – cost escalation is. If they reduce staff, and become more efficient and effective, then the debt will be manageable. Unfortunately our Councillors just can’t see it….

An example of their incompetency is the proposed selloff of our inner city greenspace. Council is currently looking to sell off the greenspace (parkland) that bounds the Takatimu Drive Motorway, from Fourth to Eighth Avenue.

• This is the entrance to our City – the first impression visitors get went entering Tauranga.

• Once sold off it can never be replaced. Our City Councillors are showing NO VISION; No respect for our future generations.

• This is about existing (consulted on) TCC policy of Work/Live/Play. TCC Plans value greenspace, but our current Councillors think they can ride roughshod over the residential community – they can’t!

Local residents are taking their fight to TCC – we are fighting back. This is not about view shafts; it is about protecting our greenspace. If you want to help – contact me and sign our petition. We have close to 1,000 signatures already, and we need to make TCC Councillors accountable to those that elect them…

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Ratepayers remain disgruntled...

This is my first editorial since mid 2013, and I feel compelled to resume writing because our local government representatives just aren’t listening to the ratepayer that pay their fees and salaries.

18 months ago voters threw out most of the sitting Tauranga City Councillors, and we had such high hopes for a more functional council. But it just hasn’t happened. TCC councillors might be more functional, but they have no vision. They are driven only by the level of debt, and neglecting to effectively control council costs. The way to afford the debt is easy – get effectiveness and efficiency in the council’s bureaucracy. But no – staff numbers at TCC continue to rise, and they hide a lot of this by separating off a lot of their operations into CCOs (Council Controlled Organisations), like Bay Venues. Don’t be fooled – ratepayers are still paying the wages, which continue to balloon out of control.

Our regional council is much the same. BOP Regional Council (BOPRC) hide under the radar, allowing their Port shareholding to finance more and more of their operations. There is no doubt that, with a 54.14% ownership (through its fully own council owned Quayside Holdings Limited) the Port shareholding continues to make life very easy for the regional council. Last week the Port declared its half yearly (normalised) profit of $38.5m, and increased the dividend 4.8% to 22 cents per share. In 2014 they paid a total dividend of 50c per share, which yielded BOPRC (owning 73,687,536 shares) a cool $36.8m – and this is projected to increase to $40.6m in the current financial year. BOPRC councillors and staff think that they are doing really well, but unfortunately receiving $36m to $40m a year from Port dividends just hides a lot of inefficiencies.

I will drill down into staff numbers in a future publication; but for now ask our regional and city councillors – “What is it that you are doing to make a difference? Not a lot… Regional Council staff numbers have increased 13% in the past two years, and yet they can’t show any added value for ratepayers…. They are out of ineffective, and need to be made accountable to their ratepayers.

If you have a view on these or any other local government issues, I invite you to email.

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