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

Some interesting scenarios popped up at the council's committee meetings this week.

As staff clean up the end of financial year accounts (June 30), and with the pending election season, it follows the normal pattern of elected members spending inordinate amounts of time on minor items of business. That's not to demean the worth of the issue – it's just the time it takes.
It took a long time to sort out a request to re-visit the death sentence for one of the Pohutukawa trees in Second Ave, handed down by the Tree sub-committee last week.
Sandy Scarrow, daughter of the late Eion Scarrow, TV greenfingers star, appeared in the public forum requesting the decision to fell one of the Pohutukawa's be rescinded. She has a degree in Horticultural Science.
Background to this is not simple. I'll run through it briefly.
Tree sub-committee comprises of Tony Christiansen (chairman), Bill Grainger (deputy chair), Larry Baldock, Murray Guy and Terry Molloy. Mayor Stuart Crosby is on all committees and has voting rights even though he is not expected to attend every meeting. Tony has been away on leave of absence. Bill Grainger declared a conflict of interest because he knew one of the parties involved. So Murray Guy chaired the meeting. A decision was reached on Pohutukawa Tree number one, for it to be 'managed” by an arborist. Tree number two wasn't so fortunate – and on Murray's casting vote the decision was for it to get the chop with Murray and Larry voting for; and Mayor Stuart and Terry Molloy voting against saying it should get the same treatment as tree number one.
After Sandy's presentation to Strategy and Policy committee, debate raged even though standing orders precluded any decision at that meeting.
Finally it was agreed by majority, for a staff report to come back as soon as possible and Mayor Stuart gave notice that he would be bringing a formal Notice of Motion to rescind the Tree sub-committee decision. Murray was most unhappy about this.
The Notice of Motion will have to be counter-signed by four elected members.

Tree trouble
Trees are the subject of a lot of focus at the moment with the mid-winter sun being so low that many homes are left in shade. Trees grow quickly in Tauranga and many privately-owned trees overshadow neighbours – and there is little anyone can do about it on private property if the owner doesn't want to attend to it.
Then we spent about an hour on parking for mobile vendors at council reserves.
Some mobile vendors have larger vehicles, requiring more than one park.
Council is keen to see that all activities on reserves, and sports fields in particular, are orderly, well-managed and provide a quality service.
Blake Park is the major bone of contention with parking at a premium. And it was eventually decided that there would be five mobile vendors. But staff had discretion to make allowance for two parks if required. Designated parking spaces for the mobile vendors will be tendered at Blake Park. But elsewhere the mobile vendors can roam at will, subject to bylaws that include no more than two on any reserve at any one time.

Elections looming
With the elections coming up in October the Remuneration Authority, that sets elected members pay, required a decision from us on the pay rates for the new council. Decision required by July 19!
They had already decided elected members pay will be $69,500 – down from $74,171. The new mayoral salary will be $138,600 – an increase from $136,700. And, they allowed $104,250 for extra duties, like deputy mayor and committee chairs. After some discussion it was recommended $5000 extra for deputy mayor and $2000 extra for the chairs.
The balance out of the $104,250 is not to be accrued and won't be spent elsewhere. It probably won't even be collected.
Elected member pay rates are topical. As I've said before, being an elected member can be an easy job or a hard job – or somewhere in between, depending on the effort put in. The irony is that the individual elected member gets to choose which, and the unsuspecting ratepayers will find it hard to judge individual worth of contribution and effectiveness. Certainly meeting attendance and utterances, sound bites, and photos in the media are among the lowest criteria to judge the worth of any individual elected member's contribution in my view.
We also reviewed how the Council Chambers work – or doesn't work. It's been 10 years since the new Council Chamber was built; and in that time the air conditioning system has never worked consistently well. I asked for opening windows to get fresh air to no avail. The sound system has never been adequate. Staff are to report back with costings, including a Wi-Fi system.
A new configuration of the chamber would allow people, attending meetings, to look at elected members in the eye instead of the present layout where half present their backs to the gallery. I raised this poor set-up right from the start. But with cables already laid in the floor for the electronics it was in the ‘too hard' basket.

This week's mindbender, from Albert Einstein: 'Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former”.