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

Following on from last week's column, Tauranga City has an interim chief executive.

Leigh Auton was appointed to the interim position at last Friday's confidential council meeting. He started on Monday. As I noted, council wants to get on with the review of the council organisation as an absolute priority and this will be the focus for the next little while.

Leigh was CEO of Manukau City prior to the Super City formation in Auckland but chose not to be part of it. Wise man! He gave Manukau City long notice of his intentions and I understand declined approaches to apply for positions within the new Auckland council. So he is a free agent and was able to make himself available at short notice. Amongst his other work he sits on the board sorting out the trials and tribulations of the Kaipara Council, which is in the do-do. A review process has been commenced at City Hall but details of how, what, where and when had not been decided, so this will need to be developed as a matter of urgency. Further delay creates opportunity for rumour and speculation, which saps morale.

The Local Government Act is a headless monster when it comes to appointment of a chief executive, in my opinion. Historically some CEO positions had become jobs for the (old) boys, so when the 1989 reforms came along the bureaucrats in Central Government made a whole lot of rules that ensured this could no longer continue. But in their enthusiasm, the bureaucrats and politicians overlooked other scenarios and confused and compounded problems and options for councils in CEO appointments. So we will commence the process for a permanent CEO but this will mean the new appointee will pick up a possibly reorganised and definitely comprehensively reviewed council structure. As an example, with the last CEO appointment it was around nine months from resignation date to a new CEO starting date and a lot of delay was due to the formal process required by law. C'est la vie. Leigh's term as interim CEO will be until council appoints a new CEO.

At a high level there is a view that some parts of council have surplus resource, others are under-resourced and there is a concern at the salary/wage bill of around $36 million. There is concern at the red tape creeping into many facets of council's regulatory function that is causing unnecessary cost and delay. Some of this is caused by Central Government, so we will be watching proposed ‘reforms' from Wellington closely in tandem with our own review. We don't want to confuse and compound, like has happened before.

At least we have council's formal main business of preparing and confirming our forward financial plans for the year ahead done, and we are back to the day-to-day operation function. The ‘boring' stuff the media rarely attends. No blood on the carpet potential for their headlines but the stuff that ensures you can go about your daily life smoothly. The water comes, the wastewater goes, the roads are maintained, the street lights are on, the parks are maintained, and so on.

Next week the Wastewater Management Review Committee will be considering the condition of the city's wastewater as it is discharged. There are strict conditions attached to the resource consent which ends up with the treated wastewater being discharged offshore. The city has a 35 year consent which is monitored and reviewed regularly. This consent cost ratepayers around $1.5 million but is probably cheaper than new applications during the 35 years of the consent. Of course, we should treat our wastewater responsibly but in any event there is no way the discharge could be stopped. It just keeps coming.

At Full Council the matter of how to charge for water and wastewater came up again. For water we are looking at stepped charges at last. I have long advocated that people who use less water should pay less per litre. There is a peak water demand problem too. This is not theoretical like ‘peak' oil. Demand does actually soar to a high level about 10-20 days of the year, depending on the summer, and our infrastructure is geared to this. So are the development contributions, as council charges new building their share of the cost of this infrastructure. So if peak demand can be constrained, it saves costs all along the funding chain. It's not easy, because we still need to collect around $15 million to get the high quality water to you.

In tandem with this is wastewater. Garden use excepted, water in equals water out. So you pay by the cubic metre for the water you use but pay a flat fee to get rid of it as wastewater; last year $330. In other cities you pay a percentage of your water consumption, say 80 per cent, to allow for water use that doesn't go down the wastewater system. This seems a fairer way to charge, although the percentage has the potential to be contentious. Staff are recommending preparing detailed analysis for options for public consultation. Along with this will go investigations of seasonal charges to try and reduce peaks. Historically a move for three month billing for water was not well received in some quarters. I'll let you know how this turns out next week.

Quite a lot of interest from the private sector in council's advertisement for interest in development of a Marine Precinct at Sulphur Point to replace the 600 ton slip. We will consider these in early August.

This week's mindbender from Vince Lombardi – the man on top of the mountain didn't fall there.