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

In what some elected members hope will be a watershed for Tauranga City Council and the way it goes about its business and services, new chief executive Ken Paterson officially took over the reins on Monday.

This appointment was made with the expectation that it would be the single most important decision this council would make this term. The reasoning behind this thinking is that the chief executive sets the culture of the organisation into the future whilst dealing with the culture left by predecessors.

The chief executive is the only employee of the elected council. He in turn is solely responsible for the hiring and firing of staff. The CEO is the sole arbiter of what resources (money) he needs to implement council's decisions – this is all laid out by central government in the Local Government Act.

In the view of some elected members, myself included, the mechanisms required by the Local Government Act (legislation from central government) and the Resource Management Act have created a dinosaur situation that moves far too slowly, has little flexibility and costs way too much to achieve results. Mayor Stuart Crosby is quoted this week as saying that current bureaucratic processes are ineffective. So if there is a political will to change things at a local level then it is (within the bounds of the law) up to the chief executive in tandem with the elected representatives to come up with initiatives.

First things first

The first action we will take is a round up for a pound up on how we see council's future direction, at a retreat on Thursday, where there can be a full, free and frank discussion without the glare, interpretations, opinions (and sometimes) misreporting of the media. I must hand out an accolade here to Christine Jones who has been in the acting CEO role since October last year. Christine has done a superb job in taking the organisation forward in a competent and professional manner. Her management has already paved the way for the necessary culture changes that are coming to the organisation.

‘Tops' for tree staff

While on the subject of accolades, another one is due to the council staff who manage council tree policy. They have been the subject of criticism over the years, but their management, advice and administration of the removal of the Aspen tree has been first class. Their appraisal of the tree's condition was spot on and no doubt had the tree been left it would have created a disaster when it fell. As suspected it was dead in the centre and all that was holding up the 30 tonne or so of top timber was what was left of the outside of the tree. It was always a tough call to remove one of the city's icons and this was the right decision.

Processing the pools process

Elected members had an on-site inspection of progress on the Mount Hot (saltwater) Pools this week. A couple of ‘tomos' have been uncovered as all the concrete surrounding the pools has been torn up but the source of the leak has yet to be identified. From years of experience with boats I can say that where water is coming out is not necessarily where it's coming from. The aim is to have the pools back in action by September 21. From the looks of things, contractors will have their work cut out – work includes a facelift and refurbishment of the plant with decisions on extensions still to come. Nothing should be read into the decision to appeal the commissioner's decision to decline the resource consent for an upgrade of the complex. It's all part of the lengthy, costly and bureaucratic legal mechanisms of the Resource Management Act (and its subsequent interpretations) that I referred to earlier.

Misplaced publicity

Shades of the hoo hah that surrounded the showing of ‘Puppetry of the Penis' at Baycourt a few years ago are happening again with the local media whipping up a frenzy over Auckland sex industry promoter Steve Crow's proposed ‘Boobs on Bikes' parade. I deliberately make no comment either for or against and the only reasons I mention it are that the free publicity generated by the media must have been much appreciated by both promoters and the hypocrisy of the daily media who on one day published the ‘moral outrage' point of view and the next day ran a free front page item calling for 16 volunteers to participate in the parade. Had there been no free publicity there would most likely be no parade and in the case of the ‘Puppetry...' show it would most likely have played to much diminished audiences. It's a pity that all this negative publicity energy can't be put into some of the many positives that go on around our city on a daily basis.

On a mission to learn

Last week I ran my own small and unscientific poll on the Mission House. I was astounded by the lack of public awareness of this gem. It's an historic house in a beautiful park opposite the domain in Mission Street. Another up and coming asset is The Men's Shed situated at the Historic Village. An entirely voluntary unit, privately funded, capably run by Dave Harper, The Men's Shed is a well equipped workshop where men aged 65-and-over can go to do voluntary work for the community. They have some great gear down there so if you are at a loose end, head down there during work hours and have a look. Restoration of the old Cobb and Co stagecoach is one project they have underway at present.

A win for commonsense

Progress too on the Dive Crescent seawall restoration – the project contract will be separated and the wall reinstatement will be done before any walkway development occurs. I had raised the issue that the rebuild of the seawall required a flexible commonsense approach and did not require expensive consultants and I'm pleased that commonsense has prevailed in this case.

This week's mindbender: The Law of Logical Argument – particularly relevant to politicians. Anything is possible if you don't know what you are talking about.

This column takes a break next week as council is in recess.