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

In a classic display of overkill in dealing with the minutiae of the day, elected members spent well over half an hour debating the merits or otherwise of dinghies on Pilot Bay beach during the full council meeting last week.

At the same time a proposal to transfer ownership of TECT Arena at Baypark from council to TCVL (Tauranga City Venues Ltd) took around half that time. That's the nature of committees it seems. The lesser the issue, the more people feel the need to contribute. Even though some people clearly have little idea of what's involved.

The ownership of TECT Arena is not that complicated nor controversial, despite efforts by one or two in the public to make it so. In my opinion not having council, bureaucrats and politicians involved in the day-to-day running of public services is a good idea. Private enterprise can just get on and do it without interference from well meaning (and in some cases not so well meaning) politicians and bureaucrats needing to cover their backs (and in some past cases covering their incompetence). Sure, occasionally things go awry but overall it's to the public benefit to have operations such as Baypark/TECT Arena run outside of council. TECT Arena ownership issues largely revolve around the accounting processes and requirements of Audit NZ through the Local Government Act. TCVL ownership is also part of the deal with TECT, which contributed $6 million to the project. TCVL will own the arena. Tauranga City Investments Ltd is the holding company for TCVL shares and Tauranga City Council owns 100% of TCIL shares for those interested in the technical details.

Tauranga City Council will lead the asset management programme in conjunction with TCVL to ensure that assets are properly maintained. It was the only item I was concerned about and we needed to ensure there was no opportunity, now or in the future, for any repetition of the Mount Hot Pools saga. We added in a resolution to this effect. TCVL is required to take on the arena as an 'as is where is” basis. Larry Baldock made a statement to the effect that it all didn't matter and council would never let TCVL go into receivership. That is his opinion only and it should be clearly understood that TCVL is a trading entity in its own right and recourse to ratepayers/council is not guaranteed.

So then we got onto the Pilot Bay dinghies: 68 of them. Larry and Tony Christianson wanted a licensing system, with associated fees, to ‘control' them. Tony even suggested council purchase 15 dinghies, five each at three locations, for the 40 or so moored boat owners to use to get out to their boats instead. The issues of what happened after the last dinghy had been taken away for a week or month by the boat owner hadn't seemed to register. Imagine that – council in a dinghy rental business! Oh dear! I moved that staff 'explore options for the location and storage of dinghies and outriggers along the foreshore of Pilot Bay”. I spoke against any registration system or fee. It's not broken and nothing needs fixing. An indelible pen to writer owners'/boat names and telephone numbers is sufficient ‘registration'. No contact details would be sufficient for council to remove any dinghy causing a problem. With the proposal of a boardwalk it might be necessary to relocate some dinghies, but it's not a major.

Contrary to Larry and Tony's view, dinghies are an intrinsic part of Pilot Bay and add to the vista. What to do with the outriggers will be a matter for discussion but it will be almost impossible to put a boardwalk along Pilot Bay with outriggers in their present situation. So there should be a molehill out of a mountain when staff return with the options. My opinion is no fees, or registration, some slight adjustment to present dinghy clusters, and discussion with the outrigger club to allow a sensible outcome for siting a boardwalk.

The Sapphire Drive/Harrisfield Drive walkway closure saga has finally drawn to an end. A trial closure showed no significant downside and it is now permanently closed. Adjoining landowners will pay costs to add the relevant part of the walkway to their land titles. We were told costs will exceed the value of the land. Another classic council process. This has taken years!

A follow on from comments in last week's column on Development Contribution potential review. It's not rocket science, despite attempts to make it so. The city has sufficient infrastructure for existing residents. When more people want to live here council has to provide more infrastructure to cope. DC means that those people pay the cost of that new infrastructure. If they don't, then existing ratepayers have to pay. That's where council is presently at. Historically council was behind the eight ball in some aspects of infrastructure for growth. Now it's ahead in some parts. If DCs are further reduced, rates go up even more. That would take council back to pre-1989 when ratepayers subsidised development and there were massive rates hikes in that decade. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Rates subsidy of development is also why DCs are ‘cheaper' in other NZ cities without growth but rates are similar to Tauranga.

After a petition to put speed bumps in at Hollister Lane some time ago, and subsequent installation, council received another petition to take them out. This failed 6-5. Council should seek a waiver in future petitions saying once they're in, they stay in. Ratepayers fund this.

At the request of Papamoa Progressive, council approved a memorial plaque for past member Alan Bright on the new amenity building at Gordon Spratt reserve. Alan was an interesting character and at one time worked alongside Rob Muldoon and Bill Birch in the Ministry of Energy as energy conservation officer in the days of Think Big. It's appropriate the plaque goes on this building. Alan fought for the building amenity and once approved, he opposed the design. That was Alan, an intelligent, forthright person who knew what he wanted and never let up in his quest to achieve it.

This week's mindbender from Oscar Wilde – I am not young enough to know everything.