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

Elected members from all over the Bay of Plenty, media and sector interest people attended a worthwhile conference on the way forward for Local Government last Friday. The purpose was to be proactive in response to the Government's latest fiddling with the Local Government Act. This Act is the remote control mechanism used by Government to dictate largely what your councils can and cannot do.

Mayor Stuart Crosby said in his opening address that it appeared to be a badly drawn up piece of legislation. At first reading it seems that way. If we have the intention right, then it is meant to be a step forward but, and it's a big but, it's likely that it will have to be tested in the Courts for definitions, precedents, etc and other legal consequences. Likely to equal more expense, delays and frustration if this is how it all happens.

Contrary to media reports, this conference was not about amalgamation of councils – in fact a theme that ran through various speakers was that councils sharing of information and services and alignment of regulation are a more economic and practical way forward. Councils have been doing some of this for a while now through BOP Local Authority Shared Services (BOPLASS) with some success at cost savings. We are now moving to Stage 2, into the more difficult areas but with the object of further reducing costs for ratepayers. Interesting that one speaker said that council amalgamations rarely produced demonstrable savings. My experience concurs with that and in fact where the Tauranga and the Mount amalgamation was concerned, it's my view it cost – plenty – but a lot of cost was masked by time and quantity. A process which doubled the service but trebled the cost.

At the conference I spoke to former TCC CEO Alan Bickers, who is now a consultant and on the Governments advisory board looking at supply of community infrastructure. My particular interest is the future control of public water supplies as noted in last week's column. Alan told me that 37 per cent of NZ water supplies are below national standards and people have to boil their drinking water. I gained the impression that the simple answer in some people's thinking – both consumers and Government – is to privatise or to use a more publicly palatable term – corporatise. (That's just another PC mechanism to wrest control from public ownership in my view.) It's just semantics to talk like this and the answer is simple if public health is the genuine concern. Central Government just legislate standards and councils must comply. In the end it's the consumer who will pay and in my simplistic approach you should only pay for the actual cost of processing/treating water and delivering it to your home. No tax content, profit/surplus, directors' fees, CEO fees (Mark Ford CEO of Auckland's Metrowater gets around $640,000). Assurances that the public interest will be protected are good only for the time of issue in my experience (witness Max Bradford's assurances when electricity supplies were taken from public ownership).

The CEO appointment process continued during the week without a conclusion. Hopefully it's getting there but with all the requirements set down by Central Government elected members have to be super-cautious – getting process wrong can be disastrous. In fact the process seems to be more important in the legislation than the result. There is an independent consultant who runs this process and it's not cheap. The cost of the process for the CEO appointment last time was more than $75,000 incl. GST. Council is using a different consultant this time and it may be a bit cheaper, although costs are still mounting. Candidates get all expenses paid, including travel, accommodation, etc to attend interviews. And some expect to be treated like royalty. Happily none of those have succeeded historically and are unlikely to succeed this time. Despite what some ratepayers have told me – 'I'd do the job for half the price” and other emotive statements, it's highly unlikely that that would happen. This is a pressure-cooker job juggling council policy demands, ratepayer demands, elected members, media, staffing, too much to do at the end of the money etc. The pool of suitable applicants able and willing to do the job is small, contrary to urban myth.

From the draft annual plan meetings we learn that savings on staff salaries from the proposed reorganisation are budgeted at $1,471,000. At the other end of the spectrum some elected members wanted to drop the $2 wi-fi charge for connection to the internet at the library. Larry Baldock advocated this, saying when he was a Member of Parliament he used to park outside public libraries to get free access to the internet. Mayor Stuart Crosby quipped 'did you have to say that publicly?”.

Alterations to the 18th Avenue intersection outside the hospital won't cost the ratepayers as much as first estimated. Around $200,000 but it qualifies for a NZTA 53 per cent subsidy, so will now cost around $94,000.

Surprise, surprise but Merivale ratepayers who replied to a survey to fund the Merivale Community Centre extended services proposal emphatically declined.

A supper room proposal to be built at the Crematorium brought an understandable negative reaction from Legacy Funerals benefactor and past councillor Greg Brownless. As Greg told me, it took Legacy to put in the amenities it has at Tauranga Park next to TCC crematorium to galvanise council into action. He has a point. Council will not be running a cafeteria – just letting premises. Council/ratepayers got well and truly burned with the Café 100 at Baycourt debacle.

Libraries will spend $1,854,844 on books out of a total budget of about $8 million – of which about $7 million is ratepayer funded – about $132 per ratepayer.

This week's mindbender from Robert Le Fevre – 'Government is a disease masquerading as its own cure.”