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

The times they are a changing down at City Hall.

New city CEO Garry Poole is already spending time here even though he doesn't officially start until mid-April. Elected members aren't allowed by law to be involved in the corporate reorganisation but it's no secret that things haven't been going as smoothly as they should/could have.

From my corporate experience, Restructure 101 says a CEO is appointed first (in the case of councils the CEO is the only employee the elected council has – this CEO is then responsible for all other staff).

The CEO then appoints his/her executive team who head the individual departments. These heads of departments then appoint team leaders and so on. Due to the delay in appointing the CEO (an unfortunate situation caused by the Christmas break and candidates' availability) the timetable for the downstream appointments has got way behind.

Garry will no doubt also be aware of the situation. By the way it's interesting to note comments about Garry's appointment. Whilst details are confidential I can say that everyone supported his appointment.

At the same time, it's election year – mid October – and the opening of the 'silly season” is becoming apparent for a few elected members and a few 'council commentators”.

It goes on every election year with people seeking to generate issues and publicity. You out there in elector land are, by and large, a canny bunch and see through most of it. It's surprising that those doing this silly season stuff apparently don't. C'est la vie!

A timely session on Route K this week with NZTA officials.

Route K is a toll road owned by TCC.

It doesn't produce enough revenue, yet, to pay for itself. But it's not a PPP toll road. That is, a Private Public Partnership toll road, where private investors invest in the road in partnership with Government.

Government contributions are made because by building another road it encourages better traffic flow and reduces maintenance on existing roads.

In Australia they have many of these but four of them have failed financially: Sydney's Lane Cove and Cross City tunnels, Brisbane's Clem 7 and now the Brisbane Airport link toll road/tunnel.

That's unfortunate, but the good news is the roads are still there to the benefit of the city and the country.

The bad news is that if investors are going to get burned then they won't invest. This means more taxes to build much needed roads.

Tauranga would be gridlocked at peak times without Route K. Think back to just before Route K opened and Cameron Road was at a funeral procession pace at peak times and the Port traffic was nowhere near at today's levels.

Then we get on to the subject of Harbour Link and the second harbour bridge which was a Council initiative originally (tolled).

Thanks to the deal Winston Peters did with the Labour Government of the day, Harbour Link isn't tolled.

My point is that as population and commerce concentrate on fixed points it is essential that transport corridors keep up by whatever means.

The next biggie in my view, for Tauranga and which won't, fortunately, involve Council is what will happen to increase the rail links and secure their structural integrity?

At a Projects and Monitoring Committee elected members heard another success story as various athletics clubs have shifted their activities to the Domain to take advantage of the $1 million dollar synthetic athletic track.

A victim of their own success, they have run out of storage space. They are to work with staff to flesh out a solution and who would pay for it and how.

Sport BOP presented their six monthly report.

TCC ratepayers contribute $352,258 to Sport BOP. In response to my question, Sport BOP CEO Wayne Werder said that volunteers were making a comeback to sport. He said Sport BOP assisted in volunteer programmes to encourage a sharing of workloads amongst members. Sometimes one person ends up doing a thankless task for years and years and served as a 'warning” to other potential volunteers he said.

Sport BOP tried to alleviate these situations.

Loved the Art Gallery presentation on their six monthly report. As a result of some non-cash donations they had had to bring these onto their books.

Quite rightly, they didn't want to create a false impression of these non-cash donations and loan forgiveness so had recorded a 'normalised surplus” of $34,685.

BOP Local Authority Shared Services, an organisation of BOP Councils that negotiates bulk buying deals, reported an accumulated $74,207 loss up to 2011/12.

This doesn't truly reflect the success that BOPLASS is in worthwhile savings to ratepayers in its member councils.

Noted accrued Audit NZ fees of $7970 for year to date.

Everything in Local Government gets audited all the time and it costs – plenty.

Our Council treasury report to January 2013 shows $215.8 million ratepayer funded debt and $391.8 net external debt.

If we can shift Route K debt at $60.3 million it will drop some of the hoo haa about TCC debt to a more respectable $331 million.

Route K will be a priority for our new CEO.

Wastewater reports indicate that the on-going programme of detecting wrongful and illegal connections to the city's wastewater system is continuing successfully. Some people are very naughty and are jamming the system with nasties and stormwater.

If all these connections are eliminated it would greatly relieve pressure (and costs) on the wastewater plants at Chapel Street and Te Maunga.

Mayor Stuart Crosby canvassed what he termed 'comment” on the Southern Pipeline that was ill informed. It's true.

Council did investigate and peer review on a stand-alone wastewater treatment plant for Tauriko. The review cost around $500,000 and the plant should have had an estimated cost of about $60 million.

But there was still the problem of what to do with the treated effluent. Ground injection and the Kopererua River were not options.

This week's mindbender – always remember that you're unique, just like everyone else.