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

At Wastewater Management Review committee, members (four elected and four iwi) received the bi-annual community survey report.

This committee was created by a requirement of the 35 year resource consent issued by the Regional Council for wastewater discharge. The community survey report is also a requirement of the consent. Another requirement was collection of $250,000 from wastewater users (you) for mitigation of effects of wastewater actual or potential. I've written before about this consent and its conditions. Some of it is emperor's clothes stuff. A community survey on odours seems nonsense. If it smells people ring up or write in. A survey (costly) asking people if they can smell anything reeks of bureaucratic nonsense. It's true that councils must discharge only high quality treated wastewater and it's also true that it keeps on coming and there isn't any practical option for the discharge to the ocean after treatment. Other considerations are decommissioning the sludge ponds and conversion of oxidation ponds to more wetlands. But in existing wetlands wildlife further contaminates treated wastewater. Intention is to go back to Regional Council seeking some adjustments to the consent. Good luck!

Elected members are continuing the CEO appointment process. Like a lot of PC blah these days the process is seemingly more important than the outcome. We received applications from a wide range of people. Elected members pruned these to a short list and we interviewed this week. From this a short, short list was produced from which a new CEO will most likely be appointed. It will be an interesting time for the successful applicant as by the time the position is taken up, the organisational review and CCO review will be well under way, probably irrevocable. But in the circumstances there didn't appear to be an option. Elected members had unanimously been pushing for the reviews since this term began. It is the sole domain of the chief executive to implement this. Elected members' input is to direct the CEO and monitor the outcome. So the new appointee will largely inherit an organisation not of their making – but an amalgam of consultants, and two CEO's views. An announcement of the new CEO is likely before Christmas.

The existing council organisation structure was tailored of the past, not tailored for the future it is said. That's true. My preference is to tailor it for today, and adjust it as we go along. This way it remains under some sort of financial control. Council rate funded debt is $216.1 million at October 31 and total net debt was $380.4m. We're at the debt limit so there's no room to move financially even if there was the inclination to do so. In 2005 there were 1267 new dwelling permits issued. This dropped to 450 by 2009. This year there have been 670 to November 30 so we're not out of the woods yet in regard to collection of development contributions which the city was relying on to fund new infrastructure debt.

On other matters a proposal to enlarge the car park at the Otumoetai Golf Club has been shelved until 2014/15. This is a council reserve and stormwater ponding area that the golf club makes good use of when it's not raining. The outcome of the declined planning application for a supermarket across the road where the Trust Hotel is has not yet run its course, in my opinion. Any appeal will take time and if it were to succeed then it would likely affect the golf club parking situation.

Bayfair Reserve toilet facility funding also was declined - $125,000 was the cost plus $8600 annual operational cost. And the old saying was 'to spend a penny”? Not these days. Coastal structures – you and I know them as sea walls – are crumbling away and need maintenance. If it's not done the cost compounds exponentially. Total is 61 walls/structures at a cost of $4,214,272. Oh joy! It was decided to return to the original 10 year plan which got reduced a year or two ago and spend around $300,000 a year (and hope for good weather).

A proposal from the Merivale Community Centre for the council to introduce a targeted rate to increase their funding for community services is to go out for community consultation and feedback. This is for 'social” programmes. Good luck with this one – the community centre does good work but I can figure the likely result right now. From where I sit these sorts of services funding more rightly sits with Central Government.

The Nightshelter for the so-called homeless is still meandering along. Council has allocated $118,000 from the Stewarts and Carruthers Trust which it administers to help the Tauranga Moana Nightshelter Trust get off the ground. Ratepayers involvement is not on the horizon but council may make some non-strategic land available if there is a suitable unused site.

In the confidential section of the meeting Community Share Agreements for the provision of community facilities in conjunction with the Ministry of Education was discussed. Those are usually joint use of school halls. It was in confidential because the Ministry had yet to hear our views on existing arrangements and possible future ones. In a changing world we need to keep up with events, make sure that needs are being met, and arrangements and obligations are still relevant. I've had a number of constituency issues to deal with lately. Most revolve around planning and consent issues – or rather non-issue of said consent. It is disappointing to note a no-can-do attitude and a bureaucratic approach from council. I thought we had got through all that. These keep on cropping up and my concern is that the concerns that are put to elected members are only the tip of the iceberg. This is costing everyone – sometimes unnecessarily.

This week's mindbender – from Abraham Lincoln. 'When you have got an elephant by the hind leg and he is trying to run away it's best to let him run.”