Did you know that Tauranga's charitable trust Art Gallery is actually a thumb_art_galleryCity Council owned and controlled facility? I discovered this to be so via the 2008/09 Annual Plan (budget). In that document I discovered that the Art Gallery is a subsidiary of the Tauranga City Council (TCC). It turns out Our Council controls the Tauranga Art Gallery Trust and through the trust, controls the Art Gallery itself.

Further, the council took it over long before the Grand-Design rebuilding project of the shiny new Art Gallery on the corner of Willow and Wharf streets got underway. That's also news to everyone I've spoken to about it since. All believed, and still believe, it was/is a privately owned charitable trust facility which we as ratepayers helped pay for and run. Not so. The Tauranga Art Gallery Trust is a Council Controlled Organisation, better known by the bureaucracy (City Hall) as a CCO. Much along the lines of a government controlled SOE.

Officially, as of August 25, 2005, the Tauranga City Council took over full control of the Tauranga Art Gallery Trust and its then future building construction project. At that time the Art Gallery operation became yet another 100 percent ratepayer-backed Tauranga City Council (TCC) subsidiary.

Although the Art Gallery Trust registered the changed status with the Companies Office in 2005, City Hall effectively took over the whole shebang sometime between 2002 and 2003. The City Hall back office deals no doubt got underway in early 2000 when the gallery project's trustees learned they had missed out on anticipated government funding. Without that funding, the independent art gallery idea was dead and gone.

But then, something of vital interest to ratepayers took place at one of those early back thumb_no_wallsoffice get togethers. It is possible few outside the inner circle will ever know exactly how and when the idea surfaced of a grand switcheroo from a community project to that of a wholly owned council subsidiary. Maybe it was the end game all along?

My guess is that one or more parties with close links to both the council and the Art Gallery Trust thought out loud about saving the gallery project by tapping into the pockets of the city's ratepayers.Then too, the top management of the then relatively new City Directions department probably figured a Grand-Design Gallery would fit nicely into their unofficial mission of creating money-munching projects designed to suck in as much ratepayer dosh as they could get away with.

Think Baywave Aquatic and Leisure Centre, Seascape Museum-on-sea, Extreme Sports Stadium, Baypark Speedway, Beijing-style Sports and Exhibition Centre, Mount Hot Pools Health Spa Resort, Outdoor Leisure Park for motorised toys and you'll get the idea.

Whoever was responsible for the new Art Gallery strategy, it all came together for art thumb_towerenthusiasts in early 2004 when gallery representatives appeared at a council meeting during the decision making process of setting up the 2004-14 Long Term Council Community Plan (LTCCP). That's when we first learned of the gallery's plea for another $1,000,000 grant - in addition to the building-purchase grant of $1,000,000 handed out to the Art Gallery Trust in 1999.The second million, they said, was necessary to complete the "refurbishment" of their Willow Street building.

Many of you may remember that when the trustees held out their hand for the first million-dollar grant they promised never to call on ratepayer funds again.

But wait. There's more. This time the extra $1,000,000 request came with the added barb of an ongoing inflation-adjusted grant to run the show. The annual amount required at the time was around $700,000. By the time the planet cools down again that'll surely match the Beijing Bird's Nest spend up. Talk about the politics of status symbol envy.

What we didn't hear about when the then independent gallery representatives sought money on behalf of the art community was that they had already agreed to a change of rules giving council, and therefore councillors, responsibility for the whole box and dice.

In the event, four councillors, all of whom are still on council, voted against the granting of the extra money. They are Councillors Bill Faulkner, Greg Brownless, Murray Guy and Rick Curach. Mayor Stuart Crosby and Deputy Mayor David Stewart are the only council election survivors who voted for it. But it seems council were not asked to vote on the design or scale of the proposed refurbishment/renovation/reconstruction.

It is my opinion that an inner circle from City Hall and the Art Gallery Trust were thumb_art_gallerysomewhat less than open and transparent when they colluded to transfer future construction and operational funding responsibility from the Trust to the Council. No doubt the powers that be followed the letter of the law in conducting the required public consultation process. They certainly did not follow the spirit of the law. Placing public notices in the daily newspaper during Christmas week was hardly likely to attract a lot of attention. So much for public consultation. (More to come. This is but Episode I of III)