Cr Bill Faulkner Faulkners Corner www.sunlive.co.nz

Money is no guarantee of electoral success. This is seen in the candidate electoral expense declarations now posted on the Tauranga City Council website.

Some candidates declared donations towards their campaigns – I won't list them all, but two high profile candidates are worth a mention.
Mark Groos, who declared $12,279 in election expenses, also declared a donation of $11,926.65 from Fairway Holdings Ltd, a local development company with listed directors of Grant Eynon and Peter Cooney, who is associated with Classic Homes. Hayden Evans declared $4400 expenses with donations of $3400 from Flame Advertising, NZ Cubs $500, and local accountant and council critic Ian Stevenson $500.
For better or for worse the three members of the Local Government Commission directly affected the outcome of the election by imposing their wants on Tauranga electoral structure without any redress for the voters. No-one asked what was delivered and, in my opinion, having sat in on the hearings, they had predetermined what the outcome would be. Here are the expenses of candidates: David Love $21,491, Steve Morris $18,209, Mark Groos $12,279, Stuart Crosby $12,219, Mike Mills $11,958, Rick Curach $11,687, Wayne Moultrie $11,051, David Stewart $10,743, Mike Baker $7783, Graham Skellern $6237, Richard Moore $5983, Tony Young $5378, Terry Molloy $4883, Bill Faulkner $4415, Terry Wynyard $3996, Bill Humphrey $3883, Catherine Stewart $3210, Murray Guy $350, Hori Leaming (Hori BOP) nil – total around $155,000. I noted a large amount of advertising with Sun Media – obviously considered the most effective media.

Taking it indoors
Remember, nothing is decided; this is the draft annual plan. Indoor Space and Active Living – mainly sports centres and halls is budgeted at $5.781 million.
The new Indoor Sport and Exhibition Centre will come on stream by this time next year all going well. And it is proceeding well at present.

Building it up
A report from council's building service inspection unit indicates grave concerns at Building Minister Maurice Williamson's plan to put liability for faulty buildings on designers, builders etc for some exempt works. There will be no plan oversight and no liability elsewhere. It's just to create a paper trail. This is for the likes of carports and so-called low cost additions. A 20sqm carport won't require a consent. Solve one problem and create a heap more in opening this can of worms.
The council customer service centre deals with 230,000 calls a year plus 400,000 for the regional council bus enquiries.
For the future, a $47,000 phone recording system will record all calls. This will be interesting as the recordings will be kept on file. Remember the Nixon Watergate tapes.

Nice for a walk
A Hairy Maclary trail is proposed to be allowed on public space around the city. There is to be no ratepayer funding. The City Waterfront upgrade is proposed to proceed with the consent process – cost $200,000-300,000 to look at options of what order to do things. Ten year budget is $20 million.
A proposal to spend $875,000 on a three metre wide walkway along the harbour in front of the Cargo Shed on Dive Crescent is unlikely to see the light of day. Some elected members were surprised at where this one sprang from. I too had missed it and won't be supporting it at this time.

Land troubles
A lengthy discussion on how to facilitate payment of development contributions on multiple owned Maori land. Because it's not freehold title it's not possible to hold a security over the title and proposals to allow time payment investigated by staff would require security. Only Larry Baldock and Terry Molloy wanted staff to continue with this one. It would also open a can of worms in the development community in my view.

Filling it up
Solid waste (rubbish) gets a $452,379 ratepayer subsidy. This is mainly debt and interest payments on the capital in the transfer stations. Council was told that cars, trailers and utes were high cost to handle at transfer stations. They provided 80 per cent of the traffic and only 10 per cent of the volume.
There is $45,000 to be spent on abandoned vehicles and a further rates requirement of $2,053,808 for street sweeping and maintaining the city's appearance.
Roading budget is $15,373,842.
Berms outside homes will only be mowed when the grass gets to 300mm. Obviously, if you want all city berms mowed regularly the rate requirement will need to be increased – and you probably wouldn't like the increased cost.

Finding the village path
The Historic Village future will be studied by a steering group to recommend a future administrative structure leading into next year's Ten Year Plan. It's a potential bottomless pit (no pun intended) for ratepayers and in days gone by cost ratepayers a poultice. From long experience with the village I can say that the more things change the more they stay the same. I will never support ratepayer operating expenditure here as the problems just keep resurfacing. Key to the village's future in my view is getting council out of the day-to-day stuff and a strong volunteer base. Classic Flyers at the Mount is a model that springs to mind.

Paying for the pool
Aquatics (pools and Baywave) require $1,997,471 rates subsidy. A $40 per year average ratepayer subsidy. Of this, TCAL get $732,000, a subsidy necessary to run Otumoetai, Memorial, Greerton and Baywave pool only costs. Otumoetai pool is coming to the end of its life and council needs to consider options. The remainder $1,265,471 is the cost of debt servicing (mainly Baywave) and depreciation. (At revalued cost.) The good news is that it would be a lot more if council was still running them – in my opinion. TCAL, which run the pools, has 150 staff.

Activities not free
Venues and Events require $1,882,358. This includes Baycourt, New Year's Eve Party and other costs like Event Support – a $200,000 pot of ratepayer money to help put on events around the city. New Year's Eve party costs $235,000 to stage and $65,000 to clean up. Communications, including ‘Our City Views' costs $1,670,849.

Wardens with grace
Parking wardens will continue to ticket no rego, no WOF etc, but with a two month grace period. This means that if your rego has expired within two months, then once you have rectified it, the ticket will be waived.

Toilets for the Lakes
Four years of persistence has paid off and the Lakes will finally get public toilets. This area gets huge public usage and it is long overdue. In this age of austerity you can go too far and in the case of the public the nearest public toilets are in Greerton.
Talking of austerity the elected members Christmas party was in the Mayor's office, after a meeting, with each member bringing a ‘Secret Santa' present of ‘up to $10'.
This is a long way from yesteryear's lavish nosh-ups at the likes of Bella Vista. Those were the bad old days of the ‘wants, needs and deserves' brigade.

Thank you
This will be the last column for the year and will return after the break in the new year. Thank you for your ongoing support, comments and feedback – it is much appreciated. Have a great break, a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.